Reading PJO : The Lightning Thief
by Nicene Quotes
Summary: Thalia, Nico, Annabeth, Jason, Leo, Piper, Clarisse, Chris, Connor, Travis, Rachel, Katie, and Grover are sent back in time to the Winter Solstice to read the P.J.O. and H.O.O. Books with the Olympians. Set in year Thalia was turned into a tree.
1. Chapter 1 : Time Travel

**Author's Note:**** Thalia, Nico, Annabeth, Jason, Leo, Piper, Clarisse, Chris, Connor & Travis Stoll, Katie, Rachel, & Grover are sent back in time to the Winter Solstice the year Thalia was turned into a tree. Set between ****The Lost Hero**** & ****The Son of Neptune****. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** I own neither the ****Percy Jackson and the Olympians**** series, nor ****The Heroes of Olympus**** series. All rights belong to Rick Riordan.**

**Chapter 1: Time Travel**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

Today, at Camp Half-Blood, Katie was chasing Travis and Connor Stoll around the camp after they pranked her cabin, Grover, Thalia, Rachel, Nico, and Annabeth were inside the Athena cabin, talking about their results in the search for Annabeth's missing boyfriend, Percy Jackson, and the supposed "Roman Camp," where he was believed to be at, Clarisse and Chris were sparring in the arena, and Jason, Leo, and Piper were working on the Argo II, when a sudden yellow light, engulfed all of them and they fell on the floor with a "thud!"

When they looked up, the 12 Olympians, plus Hades, were sitting on their thrones, staring intently at the 13 children, whom had just appeared in the room.

"Why did you summon us?" Thalia asked.

Zeus responded, "We did not summon you. Who are you?"

"We're demigods, and what year is it?" asked Annabeth.

"It is 2001," responded Athena.

The demigods all groaned and Annabeth responded, "We're from 2011."

As she said this, a box, which had sun designs all over it, with 10 books and a note on top of them, landed on the floor.

Thalia went up to the box, took out the note, and read, "_Dear Olympian Council and audience, I have sent these demigods and satyr from the future (2011), to the past, with the objective to read 10 books, involving our beloved here, P-Percy Jackson. Gods, do not harm these demigods or try to change the future in any way. Sincerely, Phoebus Apollo (Awesomest God of the Sun)._

At this, Poseidon paled, knowing this was his son.

Annabeth was on the verge of tears, while the Gods and demigods were shocked.

Finally, Athena said, "Well, introduce yourselves if you please."

They each obliged to Athena's wishes.

"Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares," Ares looked at her with pride.

"Travis and Connor Stoll, sons of Hermes," they sang, and Chris added, "I am as well." Hermes smiled at them, before giving each of them a thumbs up.

"Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter," Demeter smiled warmly at her.

"Grover Underwood, Satyr," Zeus glared at him.

"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena," Athena smiled worriedly at her daughters depressed state.

"Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, _and _the reason I am no longer a tree will be in the books," Zeus smiled happily, while Hera glared.

"Nico Di Angelo," Hades' eyes widened, "and my parentage will be revealed in the books," Hades let out a breath of relief, but still wondered "_How did he get out of the Lotus Hotel and Casino, and where is Bianca?"_

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Oracle of Delphi," Apollo cheered happily, saying, "Finally the Oracle switched bodies!"

"Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus," Hephaestus nodded towards Leo with a smile on his face.

"Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite," Aphrodite smiled hugely at her daughter and waved.

Then, Jason stepped out, and Zeus nearly had a heart attack, "Jason Grace, son of Jupiter," Hera smiled at him, while the other Gods asked, confused, "Why is there a Roman with the Greeks?"

Thalia answered, "It will be revealed in the books."

After, the introductions were complete Thalia took out the first book and read, "_Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief_," at this all the demigods winced, whilst Annabeth's eyes became glossy.

"Well, who would like to read first?" asked Thalia.

"I will daughter," answered Zeus.

He opened the book and read **"I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher."**

**Alright, well this is my first fanfiction, so please review, and let me know if I got anything wrong. I should be updated once, every couple of days (2-4). Also, I will be doing all 10 books (The entire series will take me until the last book is released), and I will be adding characters when appropriate. Well, I hope you enjoyed!**

**Nicene Quotes**


	2. Chapter 2 : PreAlgebra Teacher

**Chapter 2: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

**"I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher" **read Zeus.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

All of the demigods silently agreed with Percy.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

"Uh, _him _giving advice, that has got to be the worst idea ever," stated Thalia.

**close this book right now. Believe what ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That won't work Seaweed Brain," muttered Annabeth.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

The demigods nodded grimly at this, while the Gods look guilty.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us.**

"Sounds kind of like a disease someone has," joked Travis.

**And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"Creepy…" said Chris.

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You didn't warn me!" Travis, Connor, Leo, and Nico sang.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

At this, Annabeth winced.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a **_**few **_**months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.** **Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes!" all of the demigods who knew Percy and Apollo, Hermes, and Ares said.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

Everyone chuckled at that.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Sounds like it would be very factual and fun." Stated Athena, with Annabeth nodding along with her.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

Everyone laughed at Athena, while Annabeth couldn't help but smile at Percy.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had . Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"He sounds familiar," Athena said. "It's Chiron," said Dionysus.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"How can you sleep in class?" Athena yelled. "How could you NOT?" answered Apollo and Hermes.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"Right…." All the demigods snorted.

**Boy, was I wrong.**

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

In between everyone's fits of laughter, Hermes asked Apollo "Why didn't we ever think of that?"

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. **

"Or that?"

**And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"Awwww…!"

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"Not going to happen Seaweed Brain," Annabeth whispered under her breath.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover** **in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Ewww!" all of the girls and goddesses shrieked.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Wait, I thought you said he was your best friend?" Leo asked. "He is." Grover grumbled.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Grover!" Thalia and Annabeth complained. "Sorry!" Grover replied.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Yet I still think that you're going to get expelled." Athena said, while Poseidon glared.

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"You better do something…" Ares and Clarisse said in sync.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

Clarisse and Ares glared at Grover.

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"Why?" asked / screamed Poseidon.

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

"Foreshadowing, nice touch, though it was very obvious." Athena noted and smiled happily at Poseidon's dismay.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer." The Gods all stated.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele, **_**for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Monster?" Wondered Artemis out loud.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"_She sounds familiar"_ Hades thought.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"_Alecto!" _Both Hades and Nico thought, and Hades glanced worriedly at Poseidon, for he knew Poseidon wouldn't be "happy" about this.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Nicely done goat-boy." Thalia said. "Don't call me goat-boy!" yelled Grover. "Don't blow your cover goat-boy!" Thalia countered. Grover pouted, for he knew he lost.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"It came out louder than I meant it to.**

Annabeth smacked her forehead muttering "Seaweed Brain."

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story."Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

The Elder Gods minus Zeus grimaced, while the others looked at them sympathetically.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

**"And he **_**did **_**this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,** **and—"**

"WHAT!" All of the Gods minus Poseidon, who just sighed, screeched. "I'm sure Chiron will correct him," Annabeth said.

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"See."

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

Cue grimace from Elder Gods.

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"Eww is right." said Hera.

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"How? That was centuries of fighting,… and. Paragraph… Poseidon stop laughing… ARGH!" said Athena out of bewilderment.

**Some snickers from the group.**

"Why? It wasn't wrong?" asked Hephaestus.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"Only for demigods." Said Annabeth.

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, **

"Busted." Said Rachel

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

Nico chuckled "Our Oracle thinks like a goat, next thing you know; she'll be having 2 tin cans a day." Rachel glared at him, thus, out of the value of his own life and an attempt to not join his father permanently and prematurely, Nico's chuckling ceased.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"Horse ears, though they are similar in some ways…" said Athena.

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"He still cannot change a subject, even with all those years of practice.

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Like usual… Boys…" muttered Artemis.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."I knew that was coming.I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"** **Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Not a bad observation." Praised Athena, while all the demigods looked at her in shock, until they realized the Gods didn't know who Percy's father was, this however, did not go unnoticed by the Gods.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me."About the Titans?" "About real life. And how your studies apply to it."** **"Oh."** **"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."** **I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"It's for your safety." Annabeth muttered.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever **_**lived, **_**and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

Athena opened her mouth the comment, but Poseidon said "Read brother, before she gets started." Zeus wisely obliged, though him and Athena glared at Poseidon.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life.**

"That's horrible!" shrieked Athena. While Poseidon said "O leave him alone you nerd." "Why do you care?" Athena countered, while all the Gods raised an eyebrow. "I hate it when you do that to everyone, not everyone can be you or your kids, it gets annoying after awhile." Poseidon answered. All the Gods seemed to have an agreement about the answer, while Athena pouted, but still had her suspicions.

**No—he didn't expect me to be **_**as good; **_**he expected me to be **_**better. **_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

All the demigods sighed in agreement.

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"He might have been." Answered Demeter.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.** **The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth , a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

With this the Gods all glanced at Zeus.

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

Now the Gods glanced at Poseidon and Zeus.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere."Detention?" Grover asked."Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"Truer words have never been spoken." Said Connor and Travis, while the demigods who knew Percy chuckled, while the new demigods were confused.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everyone chuckled at this while Grover blushed to the color of an apple.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**

**She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

Hera smiled until Ares and Clarisse said "Mama's boy." Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, Rachel, and Grover countered with "If she was your mom, you would be to." During this time, Athena and Hades were looking suspiciously at the dreamy look on Poseidon's face when the boy's mother was mentioned.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

Leo than thought out loud "I wonder if I could make one of those so I wouldn't have to walk to the pavilion for food…"

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

Ares rubbed his hands on his knees and leaned forward in anticipation of a fight about to occur.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"He does give rather elaborate descriptions." Said Hades and Hestia in accidental sync with one another.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave?" All of the Gods looked suspiciously at Poseidon (Zeus and Hades glared), while the demigods looked at each other, trying to think about what to do.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

"POSEIDON!" Both Zeus and Hades yelled. "Dad, what are you yelling at!" Thalia yelled, motioning to herself and Jason. "Uh, I think now might be a nice time for you all to know that, I.. uh- am a Son of Hades, so now you guys probably shouldn't be arguing anymore, and Dad, yes it still counts, even though I was born in the 40's, and the book will explain for those of you wondering what I'm talking about." Explained Nico.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

Hermes, Connor, Travis, and Chris gasped saying "He didn't, he did didn't he..?" No one wanted to even know what they were talking about so Zeus just read.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"No kidding," everyone said at the same time.

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—**_**will**_—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

Those who had received said stare shuddered at the memory.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

"Monster," Was the general response by everyone.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"Uh no, probably not I'm assuming." Said Piper.

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"No help from Chiron I see…" said Rachel, and Poseidon said "look Athena, your stupid books got Chiron so absorbed my son might get killed." "So…" Athena countered, At that, Poseidon, and to Athena's dismay, Annabeth glared at her, but quickly removed it.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"Or try to kill you." Said Jason.

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

"Duh," Connor said.

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"Perfect," Poseidon said sarcastically.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

"Get away with what?" the Gods, Leo, Piper, Jason, Nico, and Rachel asked.

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

Hades watched Poseidon warily, knowing at any moment, he could be attacked by a very angry Sea God.

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

Cue glances towards Zeus.

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Nice!" Chimed the Stolls, Hermes, Apollo, and Leo.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"It is a great book Sea Spawn." Athena huffed.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"HADES! You sent a FURY after MY SON!" Poseidon roared. "I don't know why I did it, but it must have been a good reason." Hades countered, while getting ready to defend himself just in case. "Fine." Poseidon huffed, but still glared at Hades, who was still ready for an attack from the Sea God.

**Then things got even stranger.**

"How?" asked Nico.

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"What ho?" everyone said and chuckled/giggled or rolled there eyes a little bit.

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimpp-bghfuuaah", came out of Ares mouth, along with a lot of salt water.

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"Yes, to a 12-year-old, swinging a sword is natural." Leo mused.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!**_

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

"Weird and slightly creepy descriptions he gives, which should make his descriptions of us funny." Said Thalia.

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"How can the mist still affect him?" asked / laughed Athena.

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic Mushrooms…" Hermes and the Stolls said while looking quite mischievous.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Uh, who?" asked Leo, Jason, Piper, Nico, the Stolls, Chris, Apollo, Ares, and Hermes.

**I said, "Who?"**

"NOOOOO!" Now that we think like _him_, our lives have no chance, we were all too young…" said Travis.

**"Our **_**teacher.**_ **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Grover, lying lessons during our first break." Said Hermes, while Dionysus said "Grover, no lying lessons for you ever." Grover followed Dionysus' order.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

"God of Theatre" said Poseidon.

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

"Started off good Chiron, now finish up strong… said Hermes.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"Yes, not he knows how to lie, Connor, Travis, Chris, remind me to give him my compliments on his lying abilities." Hermes said. "Sir, yes, Sir!." (insert fake salute) answered his children.

"That's the end of the chapter, who would like to read?" asked Zeus.

"I would father" said Athena as Zeus handed her the book.

"**Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks of Death." **Athena read.

**Took me a few days, but I got it done. Tell me what you think. You know with reviews, favorites, and that stuff. I will be getting at least 1 chapter a week, if I really want to do it, and have the time, I may get up to 5 or 6, but I'll probably average 2-3. Well, hoped you enjoyed!**

**Nicene Quotes**


	3. Chapter 3 : Socks of Death

**Too answer some questions, sorry, but I am only going to update at least once a week, so my updates will not be coming very fast, but I will be completing the stories, and I have 3 years until the last book in the series comes out, so I have time. Also, Percy, Hazel, and Frank will probably join the story, but probably not until later, but I plan on Hazel and Frank joining before Percy. Well, Enjoy!**

**Chapter 3 : Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks of Death**

**3rd Person P.O.V.**

**"****Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death****,"** Athena read.

Hades and Nico perked up at the mention of death.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience,but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I can handle.**

"Life as a demigod sometimes feels like that, and I'm sure it does even more so for him," said Chris.

**For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.**

Hermes and his children shared a glance at the idea.

**The students acted as if they were completely and convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our school bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"That would be Hades. No amount of cereal in the world could cure you," said Demeter.

Hades and Nico just sighed because she _had_ to bring up cereal.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

"GROVER!" was chorused from the demigods, as Grover blushed beat red and muttered "Sorry."

**Almost.**

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

Everyone in the room sighed.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

"I believe you are in need of some lessons," said Hermes.

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened in the museum. **

"Great observation Prissy!" Clarisse said sarcastically.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"If only those were his worst dreams…" sighed Annabeth.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. **

Cue all those unknowing of the events that would ensue, to glance at Zeus, while he shrugged.

**A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

Now those glances were shifted between Poseidon, who shrugged as well, and Zeus.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

Anger found its way into Athena's voice as she read this.

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

"Good job kid!" cheered Ares.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was to lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.**

Annabeth couldn't stop the giggle that escaped from her lips.

**wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

"Old sot," Athena said, and without missing a beat continued reading.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

"Suprising!" said Thalia sarcastically, whilst the Stolls cheered "Good Job, that's what I'm talking about man!"

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

Athena and Annabeth huffed.

**I was homesick.**

Clarisse and Ares muttered "Baby," and "Wimp."

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Everyone had a confused look on their faces, because none of them knew of Gabe, not even Annabeth, although she was curious as to how he was able survive in the mortal world for so long.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, **

The girls and goddesses smiled, while Aphrodite said, "Awww! That is sooo sweet.  
>This earned an annoyed glance from Piper, and chuckles from Jason and Leo who had noticed Piper's reaction.<p>

**who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

Everyone's smiles fell, while Grover frowned, but did assume Percy meant it in a friendly way.

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exams got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Good." Artemis, Thalia, Poseidon, and Annabeth said simultaneously.

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room.**

Athena read this with anger, and Annabeth didn't look too happy about it either, while everyone else rolled their eyes at the two.

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards.**

All of the demigods groaned, complaining, "Dyslexia is dumb / stupid / annoying."

**There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

Annabeth and Grover smirked, knowing that Percy would know the difference now.

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

Jason and Athena said, "That is so easy!" However, they thought this for two entirely different reasons.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

Demeter, Katie, and Artemis smirked, while Hermes, Apollo, and the Stolls winced, and felt their shirts to make certain no ants were inside.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

And that's what he'll you, and then some." Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico said at the same times, causing Leo and the Stolls to yell "Jinx!" first that the four, then at each other.

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. **

**I never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"He wants to impress Chiron." Annabeth said while smiling, causing Athena to glance at her warily.

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir."**

"Now he should learn more about his existence." Surprisingly Hera said.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

The demigods snorted at that.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

The demigods shrugged, as Percy had a comeback for their previous actions towards his claim of not being an eavesdropper, without even being there.

**I inched closer.**

"**... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

"**We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"Well, let's not wait for that, because it may never happen." Said Thalia, while she was laughing.

"**But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline—"**

"Why is there a deadline?" asked the Gods, while those who knew just ignored them, waiting for Athena to begin reading again.

"**Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

"**Sir, he **_**saw **_**her..."**

"**His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

"It did, but someone couldn't lie…" Rachel said pointedly at Grover.

"**Sir, I... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was chocked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

The demigods who knew the reason winced, while Zeus looked down sadly but reminded himself _she's here, I will see here again._

"**You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

This caused Hermes, Chris, and the Stolls to silently curse knowing he made a huge mistake.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

They glanced at each other, thinking _he may have a chance if nurtured correctly._

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop**_**, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.**

"Why is he in his true form?" was chorused throughout the Olympus.

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since winter solstice."**

"More dates, what could have happened?..." said Athena out loud, before looking at the demigods, and then reading once they gave no hints as to what happened.

"**Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could of sworn..."**

"**Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

"**Don't remind me."**

"The one annoying thing about being a satyr…" complained Grover.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's room.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

"**Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

"**You look awful," he frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

"**Just... tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't see my expression,**

"That will not work Peter, they read emotions." Said Dionysus, while everyone else was surprised he was even listening.

**and started getting ready for bed.**

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

"Do not demigod, this is very serious, you should realize yourself, not try to avoid it." Stated Artems.

"Jeez, chill little sis." Countered Apollo

"Do NOT call me little _sis_!"

Athena wisely started reading.

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. **

**They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"You were," said Grover.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Even that would be annoying for me." Said Jason, while the other demigods winced at the thought of that long of an exam.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

"**Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

Annabeth looked ready to kill Nancy, or anyone else who was near her for that matter, which surprised Athena, and caused the demigods to move away from he slowly and with no sudden movements.

**I mumbled, "Yes, sir."**

"**I mean..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. **

**"This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

"Great job Chiron." Sighed Thalia exasperated.

**My eyes stung.**

Ares and Clarisse said "Wimp," but Ares was too loud, and ended up being drenched with salt water.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"**Right," I said, trembling.**

"**No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say...you're not normal, **

**Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

"**Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

"**Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

All those on Olympus sighed at Chiron's lack of ability to get his message across to Percy.

**On the last day of term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

Athena, Zeus, and Hades started laughing hysterically, causing Poseidon to glare at them, and everyone else chuckled / giggled at Percy's thoughts and the other Gods.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

"**Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

"Boys." Said Artemis and Thalia, with obvious disgust in their voice

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

"Sure, coincidence…" said Nico, Leo, and the Stolls.

**so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Almost gave me a heart attack when he said that." Said Grover.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exams.**

"No, never confess!" yelled Hermes and his children.

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**

"**Oh... not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"**

"The entire conversation then." Said Piper.

**He winced. "Look, Percy... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers..."**

"**Grover—"**

"**And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no person as Mrs. Dodds, and..."**

"**Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Truer words have never been spoken about goat-boy." Teased Thalia.

**His ears turned pink.**

Which was the same reaction Grover was having on Olympus.

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes,**

Dionysus smiled at that, saying "I love watching them try to read that."

**but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 009-0009**__** begin_of_the_skype_highlighting**__** (800) 009-0009 **__**end_of_the_skype_highlighting**_

"**What's Half—"**

"**Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um... summer address." **

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

"That is somewhat true now." Mused Rachel, which made the Gods even more confused.

"**Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or... or if you need me."**

"**Why would I need you?"**

"Seaweed Brain!" said Annabeth exasperated, which caused the Gods to look at her suspiciously, while Athena wondered _why does my daughter have a nickname for this sea spawn, they should be enemies?_

**It came harsher than I meant it to.**

"Good." The girls and Gods said.

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me**_**.**

"He sounds soooo sweet!" yelled Aphrodite, while Piper still couldn't believe that was her mother.

"**Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars.**

**On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cinder in a claw-foot tub full of ice.**

Hades and Athena thought _that does sound familiar… but from where?_

**There was no customers, just three old ladies in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"THE FATES!" everyone but Grover yelled, while everyone who knew Percy, especially Annabeth and Poseidon, paled and looked extremely scared for Percy.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

At this, Thalia, Nico, Grover, and Clarisse winced, but were relieved that it wasn't Percy's string, but this just confused everyone else even more.

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

"**Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

"**Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

"**Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"**Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

"Agreed." Poseidon said, looking ready to pass out.

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard my Grover catch his breath.**

Like those who didn't know whose string it was were doing right now.

"**We're getting in the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

"**What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

"**Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I heard that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

With this, Poseidon burst into a puddle of water, while the other Gods said "he was just really stressed, he'll be fine."

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could be possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

Everyone had to chuckle at the comment despite, what just occurred.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

"**Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth chattering.**

"**Grover?"**

"**Yeah?"**

"**What are you not telling me?"**

"A lot" rang throughout Olympus.

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

"**You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"Much worse nephew," muttered Zeus.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

"**The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

"He is very observant," noted Chris.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

"**Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"**This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

Those who know what he was talking about winced.

"**What last time?"**

"**Always sixth grade. They never get pass sixth."**

"**Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

"**Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

"He probably won't keep it," Annabeth said.

"I wish I knew that before," answered Grover.

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"**Is this superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

"**Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"That's it, who would like to read next?" asked Athena

"I would mother," answered Annabeth, while Athena handed her the book.

"**Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants."**

**Well, I hope you enjoyed it! Next chapter won't be out for a few more days, don't forget to review, and stuff… Well, until next time, cya!**

**Nicene Quotes**

Top of Form


	4. Chapter 4 : Loss of Pants

**Chapter 4 : Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants**

**3rd Person P.O.V.**

**"****Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants," **read Annabeth.

Everyone turned to look at the satyr who was blushing to his roots and said, "just read."

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Seaweed Brain," muttered Annabeth while shaking her head. This however, did not go unnoticed by Athena, who decided to wait until later to talk to her daughter.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

"I can see where he is coming from, but he still shouldn't have done it," reasoned Piper.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

Everyone chuckled at that.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"Mrs. Jackson is the coolest!" said Nico.

"Mrs. Jackson does make great chocolate-chip cookies!" said Thalia.

"Mrs. Jackson is very nice," said Grover.

"Yeh, Sally is the best," said Annabeth.

"Wait, you've all me her? And Annabeth, how come you call her Sally, you shouldn't be close to the sea spawn?" Questioned Athena.

"I've only met _Mrs. Jackson_ a few times, and she told me to call her Sally," answered Annabeth. Her answered seemed to appease Athena, so she let it go, and Annabeth let out a breath of relief.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

"Huh?" rang out from the demigods who knew her.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

"Why wouldn't you help her Poseidon?" asked Artemis.

"I w-wanted to, but she would never let me. She always refused my gifts and my help," answered Poseidon.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

Aphrodite shrieked and almost deafened everyone, and after a minute or two, when everyone could here again, they continued.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because **_**it **_**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"Huh, not a lie, not just not the whole truth, that's a nice way to tell a kid," said Jason.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"Understatement of the millennia!" was chorused by the demigods.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Everyone wrinkled their noses at this.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

"That is disgusting!" cried Aphrodite.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"WHAT!" was chorused throughout Olympus.

"That's what he asks him, not how are you doing? Yelled Annabeth.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

"Insult to walrus' everywhere," Nico said.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"WHAT!" rang throughout Olympus once again.

"If he even lays a finger on him, I will feed him to sharks, alive!" yelled Poseidon.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Grover sighed at this, while Athena and Annabeth raised an eyebrow at the statement, and then at Grover's actions.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

"Wrong is what you are!" said Annabeth.

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"Thankyou!" was chorused throughout Olympus.

**"Am I **_**right**_**?**_**" **_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

Everyone turned a little bit green at this.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"He will," Dionysus and Hermes said in harmony.

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"How could he live in a place like that?" asked Thalia.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"Is he always this sarcastic?" Jason and Piper asked simultaneously, and then they glanced at each other, blushed, and looked away.

Aphrodite did notice this action, but said nothing as her daughter was involved.

Those who knew Percy all said "Yes."

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

"That bad, eh?" said Nico.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Everyone tensed at this.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

They all let out a sigh of relief.

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

"Awwww," cooed the Goddess and female demigods, except for Clarisse who muttered "Wimp," while the boys and Gods snickered.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

Poseidon smiled reminiscently at this.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"That woman has got to have more patience than anyone." Commented Artemis.

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Lucky!" complained Apollo, Hermes, Nico, Leo, and the Stolls.

"Boys." Complained Artemis and Thalia exasperated. This caused Artemis to smile at her future lieutenant proudly, and Thalia to blush.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

The females, void Clarisse, cooed, and the boys snickered.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

Everyone smiled at this.

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

"Why that ungrateful, no-good, piece of sh*t!" yelled Poseidon.

" Brother! Language there are children present!" yelled Zeus.

**I gritted my teeth.**

Like everyone else who was on Olympus.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"How about a God?..." Poseidon muttered both sadly, and angrily.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

"Wow." Was said throughout Olympus.

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"She would have known what to do if you had told her son," muttered Poseidon.

However Hermes yelled, "Don't Lie!"

This caused everyone, except Poseidon, to stare at him like he dropped from outerspace.

"Why are you sitting on our father's throne? What did you do to him, because you cannot be our father?" asked the Stolls.

Hermes just rolled his eyes at them and said, " You all know he shouldn't have lied."

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled reminiscently.

Athena noticed her daughters reaction and wondered _why would she have gone there unless… No that is impossible, she must just be thinking about something else. _

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

Cue growls being emitted from everyone's throats.

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

Louder growls, and add in some teeth being gritted.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

"Of course she was you excuse for a walrus!" yelled Piper.

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"He better," said Poseidon through gritted teeth.

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Bribery, I like this woman very much Poseidon," said Hermes.

"Thankyou, I like her very much as well," answered Poseidon.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"WHAATT!" yelled Aphrodite, "She shouldn't even have a budget!"

Everyone moved away from her, and covered their ears in a desperate attempt to not lose their hearing permanently.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"Do It!" everyone chanted, while Athena said, "That is probably the only smart thing the sea-spawn will ever say."

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

"That's what we want to know!" everyone except Poseidon and Grover yelled.

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

This caused everyone to chuckle.

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"Brain, he has even less of a brain than Travis and Connor," said Katie.

The twins frowned at this, while everyone else laughed at them, and their expressions.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

"He deserves the worst punishments in the Underworld, not a single good thing that Mrs. Jackson does for her!" yelled Rachel. Everyone agreed with this.

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"He won't even be driving though?" asked / stated Jason and Leo simultaneously

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

Through everyone's fits over laughter, Leo asked, "How did he do that?" However, his only answer was barely visible shrugs from people clutching their stomachs fro laughing so hard.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

"Please do," was the response from everyone on Olympus.

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Annabeth and Athena shuddered at this.

However, Thalia raised an eyebrow at Annabeth silently asking _and you still went there with the spiders?_

Annabeth answered her with a look that read _He checks over the entire place before I go anywhere near it._

Thalia nodded in understanding.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

"And that bothers him why?" asked Katie. Everyone shrugged.

**I loved the place.**

"Oh," she said with a blush.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"Awwww!" yelled from Aphrodite's mouth, and was said loud enough, that everyone was forced to cover their ears, or not be able to hear the rest of the story.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

"Sally always did love the sea, and it only deepened after we met," said Poseidon wistfully, like he wanted to go back and relive those times with her.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"Blue, but Poseidon's color is green, why would they be blue?" asked Hephaestus.

Annabeth smirked as she read…

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

This caused Leo, Hermes, Apollo, and the Stolls to snicker at Hephaestus and he blushed, or at least did what looked like a blush.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"No, he is mostly rebellious, with a streak of obedience, and only because Gods say to him "Do what I say, or I will incinerate you," and even that doesn't always make him do what other people say," said Nico.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

Athena still couldn't wrap her mind around how this woman fell for Poseidon.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

Poseidon and the demigods smiled at this.

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

"Ah, I always wondered what he looked like," Said Jason as he looked at Poseidon.

"Me too," said Leo, while Piper said, " I saw a picture."

The Gods looked at Poseidon as they tried to envision his son, who was so famous, apparently extremely powerful, and could be their enemy in the future.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. **

"Really, fished?" said Leo.

**"I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

"I am," said Poseidon, which caused Annabeth to smile, which did not go unnoticed by Athena.

However, at hearing these words, the other demigods became jealous of Percy, because they didn't know if their parents were proud of them or not.

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

Athena scowled, while Annabeth smiled, because that was the boy she loved.

When this happened, Aphrodite perked up because she could feel love being emitted from someone. However, it quickly went away before she could pinpoint who it came from.

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I visited you once, when Sally was at work," said Poseidon with a smile.

This caused the other Gods to glare at him, and the demigods to become a little more jealous of Percy, because they were sure their parents never visited them.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

Poseidon frowned at this.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"I know he did not say that!" yelled Hera.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"You better demigod," muttered Hera.

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I **_**have **_**to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"Not even close Seaweed Brain," muttered Annabeth, and added in her mind _and that's why I love you._

Aphrodite once again perked up, feeling the same wave of love, whom she now assumed was someone who was either dating, or had a crush on Percy.

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

"A lot, Kelp Head," said Thalia.

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"I sent him to check up on Percy, probably," answered Poseidon, before anyone could ask the question, he was sure they were going to ask.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Just like Hercules…" said Demeter.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

"Risk your lives just to talk about Daddy." Mused Athena

The demigods didn't say anything, because they might have done the same thing as well.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

"Camp," was chorused by the demigods.

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

"So he better keep his mouth shut!" said Hera.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"When doesn't he," sighed Annabeth.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

Everyone turned to look at Zeus and Poseidon who just shrugged at them and then looked away.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

While the demigods' faces all darkened, except Jason, Leo, and Piper, the Gods were looking pointedly at Hades who just shrugged.

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, **_**No!**_

"Ha! I win!" yelled Zeus at Poseidon, which caused Poseidon to say, "God of Theatre."

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

"Wow, Poseidon, you are really mad," noted Hestia.

"He's just a sore loser," said Ares who was properly drenched.

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**

"Uncle, come on now, you shouldn't forget such things," joked Apollo, while everyone rolled their eyes at him.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Then what was he?" asked Leo, the Stolls, and Nico.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

"I get it, he never thinks sorry for asking," said Grover before any of the demigods who knew Percy could say anything.

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" **_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

"Ewwww!" came from all of the Goddess and girls mouths, bar Clarisse, while Grover just shrugged and said, "I needed to run faster.

**and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

"Were what Peter?" asked Dionysus, while everyone was shocked he was even paying attention.

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: **_**"Percy. **_**Tell me **_**now**_**!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!**_**"**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"That's the end of the chapter, who would like to read?" said Annabeth

"I would," answered Poseidon.

Annabeth handed him the book, and he read, "**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting."**

**That's it! I hoped you enjoyed, sorry for a little longer wait (I think), but I didn't feel like writing the story until last night. I only write when I feel like it, not because I feel compelled to, which is why the dates of updates vary. Well, review and that other good stuff, and the next chapter should be in the next few days, and just an FYI, a new character will be added at the end of each book.**

**Nicene Quotes**


	5. Chapter 5 : Bullfighting Teacher

**Chapter 5 : My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

"**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting," **read Poseidon.

Annabeth and Grover paled at this, knowing what would happen, and didn't know how Poseidon would react. They glanced at each other and Annabeth mouthed _should we tell him she's alright?_ Grover answered back with a nod.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"Sounds like Ares driving his motorcycle…" said Hephaestus, and Ares, thinking this was a compliment, buffed his chest out.

At the same time, Artemis said, "Sounds like Apollo driving his chariot when he's hungover."

Apollo huffed at that, while Artemis smirked.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

Grover, Artemis and, shockingly, Dionysus huffed at this, while everyone else laughed of chuckled.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

This caused everyone to have the same response as Percy's previous thought.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"So you're a stalker?" asked Leo, which caused everyone to chuckle, while Grover frowned.

"No, I'm keeping you alive, but if you want, we don't have to protect you, if you don't want us to." His comment caused everyone to stopped laughing.

"That's what I thought," said Grover, with a smirk.

**"Watching me?"**

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I **_**am **_**your friend."**

**"Urn ... what **_**are **_**you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

Grover frowned at this while all the demigods laughed, and Dionysus said, "Oh, he won't like that."

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty **_**"Blaa-ha-ha!"**_

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a **_**goat **_**from the waist down."**

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

"He got you there goat-boy," said Thalia.

Grover huffed in response.

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

"There are," warned Grover, just in case anyone (the Stolls) thought about calling one of his fellow satyrs a donkey.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a **_**myth, **_**Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you **_**admit **_**there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

"A raving lunatic," joked Rachel.

"No that's Nico," said Thalia, with a smirk.

"Like Father, like Son," said Demeter.

"Hey!" both Nico and Hades yelled, but everyone was too busy laughing, and just ignored them.

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"A lot of people Seaweed Brain," muttered Annabeth.

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

This caused Poseidon to glare at Hades, who just waved back.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

"Ah yes, but making up magic mushrooms, showed absolutely noooo imagination," said Hermes with obvious sarcasm.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"Their close," noted Katie.

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

"Camp Half-Blood, the coolest place in the world," said Chris, which caused all the demigods, except Jason, who said, "I can argue with that," to nod their heads in a agreement, and for Dionysus to shake his had vigorously, showing his hate for the camp he was punished to.

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

"Normally that isn't significant, but seeing as who these old ladies were, that is a very good reason," said Piper.

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in **_**me.**_**"**

**"I meant **_**you, **_**like 'someone.' Not you, **_**you.**_**"**

"That is very confusing," said Nico.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

Artemis and Thalia nodded their heads in approval with Mrs. Jackson's comment.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

"Yes, please," said Poseidon.

**I didn't know where **_**there **_**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

Like everyone else who was on Olympus, bar Zeus, Hades, and Hera.

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really **_**hadn't **_**been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"He is the slowest person in the world," said Athena.

This caused the demigods, who knew Percy, to say, "you have no idea," in unison.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling **_**boom!, **_**and our car exploded.**

"WHAT!" yelled Poseidon.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning. **

"ZEUUSS!" yelled Poseidon, giving Zeus a deadly glare, which Zeus met with his own glare, but was uneasy, for he didn't need a war with the only other God who could possibly take his place as ruler by force.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

Grover looked down in shame, thinking _if only I wouldn't have been knocked out, Mrs. Jackson would have been safe. It is all my fault. No, Percy doesn't blame you, you have to stop thinking like this._

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

Everyone who knew Percy, knew he wouldn't let anything happen to Grover.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

Everyone laughed at this, while Grover blushed.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

Everyone who didn't know what had happened already gasped in realization of the monster, and were shocked that this was the second monster he faced.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"Oh look, I'm mentioned," said Thalia, trying to lighten the mood. It helped a little bit.

_**"What?"**_

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

No one knew how Mrs. Jackson was going to make it because she couldn't get into camp. Poseidon was reading with extreme worry written all over his face.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

Poseidon winced at this, obviously sad that he had to leave her, and she was longing for him to return for so long.

**"No!" I shouted. "You **_**are **_**coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he **_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

Everyone sighed at the fact that Percy was sooo slow, and Annabeth muttered, "Seaweed Brain."

**"He doesn't want **_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants **_**you. **_**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,**

The Stolls smiled mischievously at Grover, probably about to spread the nickname throughout camp when they returned.

**at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

Everyone sighed once again, Thalia, Nico, and Annabeth smiled at the fact that that was what they loved about him, then frowned remembering he wasn't there.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

"He is incredibly loyal," Athena said with worry showing on here face, because she believed that she discovered his fatal flaw.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"You really should cut the grass more. Dionysus you should make it a punishment, so that these children learn how to behave," said Demeter, while everyone sighed and Hades said, "Oh be quiet woman."

This caused Demeter to glare forcefully at him.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man **_**magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—**

"Ewww!" yelled all the girls, while the guys were looking a little sick themselves.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"That is a weird description, I wonder if the rest of them will be like that?" wondered Thalia.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

All of the Gods and Goddesses were surprised. However, Athena's mouth was hanging open, and she just stared at Poseidon and said, "But…. How- she.. she's smart, lover- your… HOW?"

Poseidon just chuckled in response.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

If possible, Athena's jaw fell even lower, and she was too stunned to even speak.

Hera however, said to Poseidon, "you told a mortal about us!"

Poseidon answered saying, "She is clear-sighted, she saw more than most, she knew I was different, and I loved her.

Aphrodite cooed at this.

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the win dows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

"He goes by smell Seaweed Brain," muttered Annabeth.

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

Grover blushed.

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

_**Not a scratch, **_**I remembered Gabe saying.**

Everyone laughed a little at this, but the situation was too tense to do anything more.

**Oops.**

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

Athena's jaw, once again dropped, and was hanging open.

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"Sally could never be selfish," said Annabeth, while those who had met her nodded in agreement.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Everyone crinkled their noses at this.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Poseidon let out a sigh of relief.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"No, she makes it out right?" yelled / asked Poseidon. None of the demigods gave an answer, but Annabeth's and Grover's faces darkened.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

"No!"

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

Poseidon was chanting, "no, no, no, no," under his breath.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

"NOO!" yelled Poseidon, as silent tears started falling down from his face, and he looked crestfallen.

Annabeth and Grover exchanged glances, and then Annabeth went up to Poseidon, much to the dismay of her mother, and whispered _she isn't dead, she's alright,_ in Poseidon's ear. At hearing this, Poseidon still looked sad, but was no longing crying.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

Everyone who knew Percy knew the Minotaur was going to get it now.

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

"Thanks Perce," muttered Grover.

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

All of the demigods who knew Percy sighed, exasperated, and Thalia said, "that was his _ingenious plan_?"

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"That is a horrible insult," said Hermes and Apollo, in unison.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

"Almost all of his ideas are," said Thalia.

"But they always seem to work out in the end," countered Nico.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"Of course it didn't," said Annabeth with a sigh.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

There was a shocked silence.

**How did I do that?**

"That is the question we all want answered," said Ares.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

Thalia noticeably winced, remembering feeling the impact when she was still a tree.

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

Everyone wrinkled their noses at this.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

"Took him long enough," said Athena

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

"Sounds like a punishment I should tell Chiron about…" said Rachel while glaring at the Stolls.

"He wouldn't, would he?" asked Travis fearfully.

"I'm sure the Hecate cabin could find a way to put it, or grow it back," answered Rachel.

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

Grover looked down shamefully, while Chris patted him on the back.

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, ****and rage filled me like high-octane fuel.**

Everyone who knew Percy, knew the Minotaur was about to be beat.

**I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

"Not going to happen kid," said Ares with a smirk, thinking how only his kids would be strong enough to do what Percy was attempting to.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

There was another stunned silence.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

"That's a great move for an untrained kid," said Ares in awe.

Jason knew that if this was how good Percy was untrained, then he would have no problem making it in the Roman Camp.

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

All of the goddesses were shocked, because he was extremely loyal, and risked his own well-being for his friends.

Artemis couldn't even belief such a man existed, and Athena was almost positive as to what his fatal flaw was.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

At this Annabeth blushed a deep red, and all of the demigods looked at her knowingly.

Aphrodite said, "Looks like one of my daughters, I should have fun messing with their love life," which all the Gods and Goddesses rolled their eyes at.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

All of the demigods raised their eyebrows at Annabeth, silently asking the question _he's the one, is he? _

Annabeth blushed in response, while the demigods snickered.

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

All of the Olympians looked at Annabeth shocked, while the demigods snickered.

Aphrodite then started squealing, saying, "Poseidon's Son, and your Daughter like each other, Athena!"

"NO SHE DOES NOT! Right Annabeth?" yelled Athena. Poseidon, however, did not say anything, for he would wait until later to judge her. However, if she and Percy dated, as long as his son was happy, he would be okay with it.

Annabeth answered her mother's question by saying, "uh… I.. I-I... we…" While saying this, her cheeks were deep red, and Aphrodite squealed and yelled, "Ha! I KNEW it!"

"We might be dating, but I don't kno-" Annabeth started, but her mother interrupted her yelling, "This WILL NOT HAPPEN, I will NOT ALLOW IT!"

After hearing her mom say this, Annabeth got angry, stood up, and then yelled back at her mother, "NO MOM! Stay OUT of IT! I love him, and he loves me, and we're happy. If you really love me, then he will stay out of my relationship, and let me be happier than I have ever been in my life, _or was_," Annabeth added in an undertone.

Athena and Annabeth were looking at each other in silence, and Zeus interrupted saying, "I believe it is time for lunch, meet back here after, and we can continue reading."

At this, everyone got up from the Throne Room, Athena shocked, and deep in thought, Aphrodite squealing, and the demigods either talking to Annabeth, about what they were going to do regarding telling them of Percy's disappearance, or were walking to go eat lunch.

**Well that's it was this chapter. I hope you guys liked the ending, I didn't exactly know how to right it, so like the rest of the story, I just winged it and just wrote what was on my mind at the time. Do you guys want me to write about what goes on at lunch, and the other breaks, of just skip them? I should be updating soon, for I have really felt like writing a lot, so expect the next updates to happen a little sooner than usual. **

**Nicene Quotes**


	6. Chapter 6 : Lunch Break

**Chapter 6 : Lunch Break**

**Annabeth's P.O.V.**

After my _current_ relationship with Percy was discovered, _sort of_, and I yelled at my mom, _somehow I am still alive_, I walked to the Dining Hall for lunch. As, I entered the room, I both, tried to avoid my mother at all costs, and look around the room for inspiration for my new design for the Dining Hall on Olympus. I was snapped out of my thoughts by Thalia, who was asking me a question.

"Are you alright, now that the Gods and Goddesses all know?" she asked.

I answered, "Yes, I finally got it out there. Now I don't have to worry about it, and my Mother knows not to incinerate Percy," _hopefully _I thought to myself.

Thalia and I reached the buffet table, got our food, and sat down by our friends. The Gods, however, just went to their seats and conjured up some nectar and ambrosia, and started eating.

During the meal, my mother was stealing glances at me. Her look was concerning, worried, and skeptical. I didn't understand why she couldn't just be happy for me, because after all, a parent who truly loves their child would be happy, or at least put up with whatever made their child happy. However, my mother just had to try to interject and ruin my happiness because of who Percy's father was. I was extremely irritated at her and would try to avoid her as best one could avoid their, Goddess of Wisdom, mother. However, my mother wasn't the only Goddess who was stealing glances at me during the meal.

Aphrodite kept on looking at me with, either a giddy expression, or a sad and puzzled look. Whenever she would glance at me, and I was thinking about all the things I loved about Percy, she would become all giddy after she looked at me. However, whenever I thought about how Percy was missing, or that he probably didn't even remember anything from his past… _me_, she would give me a sad and puzzled look, probably wondering why I was emitting "_sad love_," as I had once read she called it, and try to read my expression for answers about why I was feeling the way I was. Occasionally, if one of my friends would give me a worried or sympathetic glance, she would take note of this and would probably add that person to the list of people she was planning on interrogating about why I was in such a sad state. She would probably go and interrogate them first, and then if she couldn't get her answers from them, she would question me. However, I wasn't sure if I was mentally or emotionally ready to be interrogated about Percy by the Goddess of Love.

These thoughts and actions continued until everyone finished eating Lunch, and Zeus rose and said, "Now, if everyone would please head to the Throne Room, so we may continue reading about my nephew's adventures." After that, all of the Gods and Goddesses flashed to the Throne Room, and the demigods exited the Dining Hall, heading towards the Throne Room. Once everyone was back at the Throne Room, Zeus asked, "Who would like to read?"

"I would Father," answered Artemis, as Zeus handed her the book.

"**I Play Pinochle With A Horse," **read Artemis.

**Well, I hoped you enjoyed the chapter, despite the fact that it is very short, and I finally put it in the 1****st**** Person Point of View (Annabeth). These breaks will normally only be as long as this chapter was, as they are simply meant to help show you some new information, make the story make sense (reading 10 books straight is just crazy), and put some events in a certain person's perspective. Well, until next update, cya!**

**Nicene Quotes**


	7. Chapter 7 : Pinochle Playing Horses

**Chapter 7 : I Play Pinochle With A Horse**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

"**I Play Pinochle With a Horse," **read Artemis

"He better hope that Chiron never reads or hears about this," joked Leo.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"I usually don't like demigod dreams, but those don't seem like demigod dreams, they are just plain strange," said Nico.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

Annabeth was blushing a deep red at this, while the demigods, Gods, and Goddesses, bar Athena, Aphrodite, and Artemis, laughed a little at this.

Aphrodite squealed in delight, angering everyone there, as they had gone deaf for about 15 seconds.

Athena was read with anger, but kept a hard, straight expression, just looking forward.

Artemis, not believing in love, just waited until everyone was done reacting to what was just read, so they could continue reading.

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

"You actually thought Prissy knew something?" asked Clarisse disbelievingly.

"I didn't know any better at the time," answered Annabeth.

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

Athena's eyes widened in realization, and she was contemplating telling Zeus, but upon one look from the demigods, she decided to wait until later before she revealed her discovery to Zeus.

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

"Well that was a good way to shut him up," joked Rachel.

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"Awww, he misses you already!" said Piper and Aphrodite simultaneously, while Leo and Jason were looking at Piper like she just turned into a cyclops.

"Beauty Queen… you- y-… ur mom…. Agree.. what?" was all Leo could say.

Piper just rolled her eyes at him, and hit him in the back of the head because he called her "Beauty Queen."

Aphrodite however was extremely happy that her daughter thought like her, and beamed at Piper in response.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

"There is a lot more than you think," said Hera.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

Those who knew Percy winced at the description, even though they knew he had suffered through worse.

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

Everyone made the connection that the drink was nectar.

**My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

Poseidon paled a little bit, not realizing how much of his son's energy had been lost in his fight with the Minotaur.

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"A few days, but not bad," said Grover.

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

"Oh no, not you to Perce," complained Grover.

"Hey! That's my nickname for Grover, not his," said Thalia.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...**

Everyone, even those who knew she was alright, looked down in sadness at what had just happened to Mrs. Jackson.

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

Poseidon and Annabeth winced at the thought of how much pain Percy must have been in.

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

Athena visibly face palmed at this, and then sent a worried glance at her daughter, because she did not want her daughter to be even madder at her.

Luckily, Annabeth did not notice her mother's slipup.

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

"Wow, he actually knew something," mused Travis.

"Buuutt, letting anyone know about it could have gotten him killed," joked Connor as the brothers high fived.

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really ..."**

Everyone looked down for a moment of silence for Mrs. Jackson, even those who knew she made it out okay, because of what she had to go through all these years.

**He looked down.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!" yelled Thalia.

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"Oh, sorry," Thalia said while blushing.

Nico chuckled at her, and ended it up with singed eyebrows, and no hair on one of his arms, which shut him up quick.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

Thalia glared at Grover, who sighed and said, "I get it already Thalia."

After this, Thalia glared at her father, who was glaring at said satyr, and he removed his glare, though wasn't too happy about it.

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

Everyone shot Grover glances as he blushed.

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

"Dramatic," sighed Poseidon and Hades at the same time, while Zeus glared at them.

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

Dionysus and Grover both glared at the book and said, "He better not even think about it!"

"Uh, you guys realize he thought about it in the book, so your threat is pointless," said Clarisse, while Ares beamed at her in pride, being as he knew all about good insults and threats.

The two who made the threat, just sighed and ignored the looks and laughs everyone was giving them.

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

Poseidon, Annabeth, and Grover winced at this.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"Never. I would not allow that to happen," stated Poseidon, who received glares from his brothers.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

"Right, like a 12-year-old Percy could ever pass for 14, let alone 17," said Clarisse, while everyone snickered.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.**

"No, but I knew I was going to be in trouble," said Grover.

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

"What a good friend," said Piper, while everyone else agreed.

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to **_**protect **_**you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

"You can say that again goat-boy, but now it's for a way better reason," said Thalia.

Grover, however, was indifferent about this, thinking about how Pan had to fade for that to happen.

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

"Okay, that sounds like it might be bad, or might be delicious. I can't decide," said Nico while everyone rolled their eyes at him.

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

"Awww," all of the Girls, minus Clarisse, and Goddesses cooed.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

"I never really got that," said Leo.

No one had an answer for him, so they just chose to ignore him and read on.

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

"Aww! Grover, I wanted to see what would happen if you drank some!" complained, Travis and Connor jokingly. This earned them a slap on the back of the head by Katie, and a glare by Grover, Thalia, Annabeth, and Dionysus.

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home made."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"So, very good," said Chris.

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

"Oh, Hipeee! I'm mentioned," said Dionysus was obvious sarcasm.

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

Everyone winced at the way he got the souvenir, or at least what he lost to get it.

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architectureâ€"an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena€"except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"I never get tired of that sight," said Annabeth while all of the other demigods nodded, and Dionysus shook his head, obviously disagreeing.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

"Can't get enough of him, can you Annie?" asked Travis.

Annabeth glared daggers at him, and Katie smacked him upside the head in response.

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

Dionysus' face was contorted with rage while everyone else was trying to hold in their laughs.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

"Hell yes I could!" yelled Dionysus, while everyone else snickered at his reaction.

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,**

"Just a camper? Nice to know you think so highly of me," joked Annabeth.

"Sorry," said Grover while blushing.

**but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron..."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers **_**B**_**.**

"I wish all of our teachers did that," complained Connor, Travis, and Leo.

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

Zeus glared at Dionysus saying, "you are there to be a _positive _influence on them."

"Sorry," squeaked Dionysus in response.

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, **_**if **_**there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

Everyone laughed at that.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

"Still the blond girl, even after Grover said my name," complained Annabeth with a smile on her lips.

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.**

"What's that supposed to mean!" yelled Annabeth and Athena at the same time, while everyone just smiled at them _like mother like daughter_.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

"Good," said Annabeth and Athena. However, Athena said it because _she could take that sea spawn down in a fight_, while Annabeth said it for the same reason, and because _he said they were pretty_.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, **_**You killed a minotaur! **_**or **_**Wow, you're so awesome! **_**or something like that.**

Everyone snorted at that, and Leo said," you have a better chance getting beauty queen to act girly," which resulted in him being hit in the back of the head by Piper.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

Everyone but Poseidon laughed at that.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

All of the demigods wiggled their eyebrows at Annabeth, while Aphrodite said, "someone had a crush!"

All of this caused Annabeth to blush beet red, and Athena to glare at Aphrodite.

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

All of the Gods nodded their heads in agreement.

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

"Great, well that's where the ego comes in," complained Thalia sarcastically.

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

"I wonder what he did to him?" wondered Rachel out load. Everyone shrugged in response.

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"Egooo," said Thalia.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first.**

**We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

"Because I will incinerate you if you annoy me," said Dionysus, while Poseidon glared at him.

**"You **_**do **_**know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, **_**sir**_**," he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

All of the demigods nodded their heads in agreement, while Dionysus said, "The feeling is mutual."

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all **_**civilized **_**young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Bruner"Chiron"why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

"With good reason," warned Dionysus pointedly at the Stolls.

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, **_**I **_**was his star student. He expected **_**me **_**to have the right answer.**

"You and Annabeth," was chorused by the demigods, while Annabeth blushed.

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

All of the Girls and Goddesses cooed.

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

Everyone glared at Dionysus, who tried to act as if he couldn't see them, but failed miserably.

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

"He never saw the orientation film!" was chorused by the demigods.

"I guess that's why he was abnormally slow," said Annabeth.

"Well, part of the reason was that he has kelp for brains," joked Thalia.

"True, very true," agreed Nico, while all of the demigods, minus Jason, Leo, and Piper, laughed at the three.

After the laughing died down, the Stolls looked at each other and said simultaneously, "We have to show it to him when he gets back."

"Get's back from where?" asked Poseidon.

This caused all the demigods to stop talking and look down. Annabeth looked like she might cry. Finally, after a few seconds, Thalia said, "It will be in the books."

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, **_**Not! **_**But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

"I might win," said Dionysus happily. All of the demigods shook their heads knowing that he didn't, because if he did, he would have bragged about it to the entire camp.

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."**

"Gods," was chorused throughout Olympus.

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital **_**G**_**, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

All of the Gods and Goddesses raised an eyebrow at this.

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

**And there it was againâ€"distant thunder on a cloud less day.**

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

Dionysus' eyes filled with rage, and everyone sighed, knowing Dionysus was going to go on a rant about science.

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come **_**so-o-o **_**far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

'I doubt him figuring it out would make him act any different," mused Grover, while all of the demigods had reminiscent looks on their faces.

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that **_**immortal **_**means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

"Not his kind of life," Thalia said so only the demigods could hear, and everyone who knew what she was talking about smiled at Annabeth.

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some day people would call **_**you **_**a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

Everyone winced at that and Leo said," Jeez Chiron! Low blow!"

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

All of the demigods and Poseidon glared at Dionysus.

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

Zeus raised an eyebrow at Dionysus.

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

"Oh I'm suuurrrre that's what it was," grumbled Zeus while glaring at Dionysus.

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

All of the Goddesses rolled their eyes or glared at the Gods, while the Gods had a dreamy expression on their face.

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

"Unfair that you can't act anywhere near your age, and I have to deal with you," said Zeus while still glaring at Dionysus.

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

_**"Di immortales, **_**Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

"Somehow!" was chorused throughout Olympus.

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

Dionysus smiled happily at this.

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

Aphrodite shrieked in disgust, while everyone else covered their ears in an attempt to keep at least a little bit of their hearing.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

"We are all just as surprised as you," joked Ares while Dionysus huffed at him, and everyone else on Olympus laughed at him.

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

Poseidon glared at Dionysus, but knew Percy really shouldn't have said that.

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

"Blasted Centaur always wins, I have to figure out his secret..." muttered Dionysus.

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, **_**again, **_**about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

Thalia and Annabeth glared at Dionysus.

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

"You have no idea…" grumbled Dionysus.

Zeus said to him, "It is your own fault, so stop complaining," which made Dionysus shut up.

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in **_**America**_**?"**

"NO! They're in Bangcock!" yelled Travis, which caused Katie to hit him numerous times, all the Gods and Boys to crack up laughing, and the Girls and Goddesses to either roll their eyes or glare at him.

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

"He must be the slowest demigod ever, and that's saying something, seeing as Poseidon has had a lot of kids before," said Athena, while Poseidon glared at her and everyone else chuckled.

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.**

Annabeth smiled at this, while all of the other demigods rolled their eyes at her, knowing how much she loves architecture.

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that **_**I **_**seemed to be included in Chiron's **_**we, **_**as if I were part of some club.**

"Oh, he is special all right," joked Thalia.

"Special needs," added Nico and the pair started laughing at their absent cousin, then stopping, remembering that he wasn't here with them.

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"**

"Seriously, he doesn't even know who he is," said Leo, but then regretted it the second the words came out of his mouth.

Piper smacked him a few times, Annabeth's face darkened, everyone else either glared at him, or gave Annabeth a sympathetic look.

While this was happening, the Gods were looking at the demigods curiously, Athena was looking at Annabeth worriedly, and Poseidon was worried about why his son wouldn't know who he was.

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

Everyone sighed at how slow Percy was.

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be smores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

_More like an obsession _everyone thought.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"That's the end, who wants to read next?" asked Artemis.

"I will," said Demeter and Artemis handed her the book.

"**I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom."**

**Well that's it. Sorry about the long wait, I was really into doing these a couple of days ago and I got chapter 5 and 6 out the same day, and did half of this chapter, but I went to bed and never really felt like doing this a lot. I was working on about a page every day, so sorry for the delay, but I will not leae this story unfinished. I hate leaving things unfinished and even if I hate doing it (which I won't) I will finish it. Well, until next time, review and that stuff. Also, Percy, Frank, Hazel, and Reyna are the people who will join them, but the order is still up for debate, let me know when you think they should come in, and know only 1 per book!  **

**Nicene Quotes**


	8. Chapter 8 : Bathroom Lord

**Chapter 8 : I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

**"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom,"** read Demeter with an eyebrow raised.

**Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**

Everyone laughed at that.

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's **_**him**_**."**

"Ego-boosters!" said Thalia.

"I need to find out who they are, so I can make sure they get punished in Capture the Flag," said Annabeth.

Travis and Connor gulped at that, knowing it was them, while Katie was giving them knowing looks.

**Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**

"He probably could do one if he wanted to," said Nico.

"Now maybe, but back then he was just a scrawny little prissy," said Clarisse.

"Do you remember what the "scrawny little prissy" did to you Clarisse?" asked Chris while she gave him a half-hearted glare, and the Stolls gave their brother a jealous look, because had they said anything, they would have gotten electrocuted by "Lamer."

Chris just gave Clarisse a smug smile, and then gave his brothers the same look.

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

"Is there something up there?" asked Jason.

The demigods who knew what was up there just shuddered in response, and Apollo looked down at the ground thinking _why can't she have a new host? _

Hades, having figured out they were talking about the Oracle, glanced around uncomfortably in his throne.

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

"Nice cover Chiron," said Travis.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

"His feelings seem to usually be correct about the situation he is in," noted Piper.

Annabeth added in an undertone, "Yah, but it takes him years to understand what they mean, and do what his feelings say he should."

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

**We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**

**Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

"Thanks to my children," Demeter said proudly, and Dionysus added, "It's mostly me," which caused Demeter to glare at him.

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.**

"That punishment was unfair," grumbled Dionysus, while Zeus sent him a death-glare, which prompted him to shut up quickly.

**I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

At this, all of the demigods who knew how Grover played at the time laughed at him, while he blushed saying, "I got better."

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

Grover nodded.

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

"Thanks Perce," said Grover.

All of the Gods and Goddesses were thinking _he really is a good friend._

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.**

Annabeth and Thalia glared at the book, both imagining it was Chiron at the time he had said that about Grover.

**To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."**

"He's done that a lot of times," said Thalia while Nico and Annabeth nodded her head in agreement, Grover blushed, and Zeus tried his hardest not to glare at Grover.

**"But he did that!"**

Thalia and Annabeth nodded in agreement.

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."**

"He is the most courageous satyr ever," protested Thalia, while all of the demigods who knew him nodded, and Grover blushed.

**I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

Zeus, Annabeth, Hermes, Thalia, and Athena winced at this.

**Grover signed even more miserably than before.**

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that **_**was **_**Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

Leo, Travis, and Connor stared at Grover and then simultaneously yelled, "THAT SUCKS!"

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

**"That's horrible."**

"You can say that again," grumbled Grover.

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

"Never," said Grover defiantly.

Rachel laughed and then said, "Channeling _him_, now are we?

All of the other demigods laughed at that, while the Gods and Goddesses, and Piper, Jason, and Leo were just plain confused.

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

_Yes _thought everyone on Olympus, apart from Jason, Leo, and Piper.

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word **_**death. **_**The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

Annabeth and Grover sighed, knowing exactly where this was going.

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

At this, everyone's jaws dropped, except for Annabeth, Grover, Nico, Thalia, and Hades, who just raised an eyebrow at the new information.

Poseidon kept thinking _he's going to go to Hades' domain to try to get his mother back, and I might lose both of them… But he is alive because the demigods said so, so does that mean he doesn't go or somehow makes it out alive?_

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

"That's just going to make him think about it more," said Thalia.

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**

"Nice subject changing Chiron," joked Chris while his brothers looked like they were mad that Chiron could change the subject as good as Grover could lie.

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

Everyone chuckled at how wrong he was.

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

"Why would he?" asked Clarisse.

**"My own—?"**

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**

Everyone laughed at that, knowing why he didn't.

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

Ares and Clarisse smiled at that, while everyone minus Chris and Aphrodite frowned at them.

**"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**

**"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

Everyone glared pointedly at Clarisse and Ares, who ignored them.

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

Everyone except Leo mentally face palmed.

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

"Going a little weird for him is more like becoming more normal," joked Thalia, while everyone who knew Percy laughed, and Poseidon frowned.

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

"Well, we are all different," said Hermes, while all of the Gods and Goddesses nodded their heads in agreement, except for Hades who just grumbled about not having a cabin or an Olympian Throne.

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

Leo and Hephaestus smiled at that.

**Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.**

Demeter and Katie smiled at that, while Connor smiled at his brother, giving him a look clearly saying _you are going to be spending a lot of time in there soon_, to which his brother just glared back at.

**Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. **

Apollo and Rachel smiled at that.

**They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

Jason nodded his head in agreement, while Travis said, "but he hasn't ever used them because he has always been _busy_." The demigods who knew what he was doing when he was _busy _chuckled a little bit at that.

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

Hestia and Nico smiled.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. **

Zeus and Hera smiled at that.

**Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

Zeus smiled at that, but Thalia and Jason on gave half-hearted smiles, in order to not make their dad feel bad about his cabin.

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

Hera smiled at this while Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico glared at her, making their parents mentally groan, because it seemed that their children were going to be getting into fights with the Queen of the Gods.

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

"He actually knew something," joked Nico while everyone who knew him laughed.

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty."**

**"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

"No one is supposed to," said Hera while glaring at Zeus and his children, which caused the three, minus Jason, to glare back.

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

Everyone, even the Gods and Goddesses, who now knew how slow Percy was, sighed.

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled at that.

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

Poseidon couldn't tell whether Percy liked his cabin or not after hearing this, even though Percy complimented it, for the loneliness would most likely make him slightly unhappy there.

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

Ares and Clarisse smiled.

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. **

Everyone looked at Clarisse.

**She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

"I could take her," said Clarisse defiantly, while Chris smiled at her.

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

"They are so much fun to party with!" yelled Travis.

"They are pretty cool," admitted Thalia.

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me. **_**"The **_**Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

Everyone sighed at his bluntness, but Annabeth did it with a big smile on her face, because that was _the Seaweed Brain I know and love_. Annabeth's thoughts caused Aphrodite to smile at her, which caused Annabeth to start thinking of architecture, or basically anything else besides Percy, which caused Aphrodite to frown at her.

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about **_**should **_**be. The truth is, I **_**can't **_**be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

"He will always be needed," said Katie, while everyone nodded their heads in agreement with her, and Dionysus grumbled, "then why do I have to be there." Luckily for him, Zeus didn't hear him.

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

Everyone except for Athena silently agreed with him.

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

**"Why depressing?"**

Everyone, once again, sighed at his obliviousness, while Athena thought _How can my daughter, like someone this… this… incompetent? _

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**

Annabeth smiled, and then it disappeared as she remembered that Luke was going to be in the cabin and introduced into the story.

**The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**

Annabeth thought _Blonde girl? Still? Seaweed Brain._

**When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

"No I was not!" Annabeth protested.

"Maybe not, but you were definitely thinking about him," joked Travis, who received a glare from Annabeth, who was slightly blushing, and a smack on the back of the head from Katie.

Athena, secretly, fumed inside, because that fact that her daughter was dating her rival's son was brought up again.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.**

Everyone just shook their heads at the unintentional pun.

**There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

Everyone just shook their heads again.

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on **_**old.**_

Hermes frowned, while his sons smiled, thinking about their cabin.

**The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ?**

"A Caduceus," said Hermes.

**A caduceus.**

"Oh," said Hermes, blushing, while everyone laughed at him.

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

Hermes frowned at the other Gods and Goddesses, while everyone except Artemis and Hera, just looked somewhere else.

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range.**

**I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

_Good_, Jason thought.

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

"Naturally?" asked Piper.

'Did we mention that he is extremely sarcastic to just about all beings, no matter how powerful you are, or whether you are in a life or death situation," said Rachel.

This caused Piper and Jason to have unsure looks about how they would get along with him, while Leo smirked thinking _me and him will get along great!_

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

All of the Gods and Goddesses who had children shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the demigods who had sad, annoyed, or slightly happy expressions. The Gods and Goddesses understood the first two expressions, but the slightly happy ones confused them.

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

Annabeth's and Thalia's eyes became glossy, while everyone else had either confused, curious, angry, or resentful expressions on their faces.

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

Hermes perked up, along with Zeus and Athena, having recognized the description, apart from the scar, which left Hermes wondering _what, gave him the scar? It wasn't the quest am I working on getting him is it?_

**"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**

A couple people snickered at Annabeth, who was glaring at all of them.

Jason had a slight smirk, now that his early suspicions about Annabeth's feelings for Luke were correct.

Aphrodite was smiling, thinking _A Love Triangle, I should get to work on that as soon as we are finished with these books._

**She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

Hermes smiled a little bit, along with his sons.

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**

Hermes and the Stolls frowned, and Hermes mouthed to them _maybe another camper. _

**I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

Hermes smiled knowing those were his children, not those of his fellow Olympians, whom they had chosen not to claim.

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

**The campers all laughed.**

As some of those on Olympus were doing now.

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

"He really would have not made it a foot on his quest without you would he?" whispered Thalia to Annabeth, who just nodded in return, with a little smile playing on her lips.

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

All of the demigods raised their eyebrows pointedly at Annabeth who just blushed and said, "Not that one," which caused all of the demigods to laugh a little in response.

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"**

Everyone snorted at that.

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

**"To get killed?"**

**"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"**

All of the demigods looked at her like she was a Cyclops, and she just blushed and said, "Not anymore."

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was **_**the **_**Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

**"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."**

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

Everyone chuckled at that, why Annabeth huffed, remembering how annoying it was to explain things to him.

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche types. Eventually, they re-form."**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

"You have no idea," said Nico.

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

"So you watch him sleep?" asked Rachel, which caused everyone but Athena to laugh, and Annabeth to blush.

"Shut up!" yelled Annabeth, even though her face was still beat red, so it wasn't very threatening.

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

Hades smiled while everyone else gave him disturbed looks.

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

"It's possible," said Annabeth in order to answer everyone's unasked questions.

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

"Why do we call them that, even though they aren't kind at all?" asked Connor.

"We call them that because it is what Chiron calls them," answered Annabeth and everyone on Olympus say that as a sufficient answer.

**"Look, is there anything we **_**can **_**say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

"It depends on who your parent is," said Chris even though everyone on Olympus knew that.

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."**

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

Everyone raised an eyebrow at her, and she said, "I get it, I didn't know him that well then," while blushing a little.

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.**

**"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

Everyone, including those who knew she was alright, looked down at the reminder of what had happened to Percy's mother.

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

Poseidon winced at this.

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

"You have no idea," said Annabeth in an undertone.

**"Your father's not dead, Percy."**

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

"Well, she would have met him if she visited Olympus, though she wouldn't have had any real contact with him," said Athena, which caused Poseidon to roll his eyes at her in response.

**"No, of course not."**

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I know **_**you.**_ **You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"**

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.**

All of the demigods thought about all the times that had gotten them made fun of, or the times it just flat out gave them humongous headaches.

**And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

"Not like you, but close Seaweed Brain," muttered Annabeth.

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

All of the males smiled at the mention of the food, while the Goddesses rolled their eyes at them.

**"Ambrosia and nectar."**

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

**I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

Everyone looked at Clarisse, and Clarisse smiled, until she remembered what was going to happen to her, which caused her smile to turn into a scowl.

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

Ares smiled proudly at the mention of his daughters.

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

_**''Erre es korakas!"**_ **Annabeth said, which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."**

Athena nodded in agreement, while Ares shook his head.

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat.**

"Yes I could!" argued Clarisse, who added under her breath, "If Prissy wasn't on your team."

**She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

Poseidon scowled at Clarisse for calling his son a little runt, but she just ignored him.

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

Ares and Clarisse nodded their heads.

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."**

Everyone laughed while Ares' and Clarisse's faces were red from embarrassment and anger.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."**

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

All of the demigods who knew Percy just stared wide-eyed at Annabeth, and then at Clarisse, and repeated this action, though none of the Gods noticed.

**Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it,**

**and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.**

Jason thought _he should do better than I thought he might_.

**I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.**

Ares smiled, knowing what his daughter was going to do to him.

Poseidon, however, smiled knowing that in the bathrooms, Clarisse was going to get it.

**I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I **_**could **_**think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**

Everyone chuckled at that.

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

Poseidon glared at her again, but luckily for her, she didn't notice.

**Her friends snickered.**

**Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

Annabeth huffed, while blushing, "No I was not," while everyone laughed at her

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

Ares' smile fell from his face, Poseidon's grew, and everyone else was leaning forward with grins on their faces, knowing that something funny was going to happen soon.

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

Everyone was trying to contain their laughs while Clarisse and Ares had faces that were beat red, and eyes that were on fire.

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.**

**The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

**She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

Athena shook her head, while laughing, knowing that they were going to get it as well.

Ares was just trying his best not to go beat up some of the demigods who were laughing.

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.**

Everyone was laughing as hard as they could by now, even the Goddesses were laughing.

**As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.**

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.**

Athena stopped laughing and frowned, Ares tried to give her a smug look, but failed, and Annabeth had a slight frown on her face, but wasn't too upset about it.

**She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

Poseidon smirked at Athena, her sent him a glare, and Ares, who didn't notice.

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

"His answer to every question," joked Thalia.

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

Everyone except Clarisse and Ares laughed at that, and Hermes said, "Nice one!"

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

"Both," Annabeth said.

**"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

**"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

"Can't get enough of him can you?" said Aphrodite.

Annabeth was going to smirk at Clarisse, but due to the blushing she did at Aphrodite's words, she decided against it.

"That's the end, who would like to read?" asked Demeter.

"I will," said Piper, who took the book from Demeter.

"**My Dinner Goes Up In Smoke."**

**That's it. Sorry about the wait on my upload time, I was busy, and didn't really feel like writing anything, so I would only do a few paragraphs a day, until tonight. I am going to try to have half of the next chapter done, before I upload the one before it from now on, so after the wait between this chapter and the next, the wait for uploads should be lessened. Well, I hope you enjoyed and like and review and that stuff please!**

**Nicene Quotes**


	9. Chapter 9 : Dinner Up In Smoke

**Chapter 9 : My Dinner Goes Up On Smoke**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

"**My Dinner Goes up in Smoke," **read Piper.

**Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.**

Annabeth and Athena scowled at this while all the demigods smirked at Annabeth.

**She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man),**

"GOOAAT-MAN! THAT'S PAN!" Bleated Grover, slightly angry at his friend. Everyone who was with Pan when he faded looked down sadly, while everyone else chuckled at Grover's antics.

**and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.**

Leo had a smirk on his face and was looking pointedly back at Jason, who, in return, was scowling at his friend.

**Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.**

**"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."**

Athena had a smile on her face because her daughter was not going to be with that Sea-Spawn for the time being, in the book that is.

**"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."**

**"Whatever."**

**"It wasn't my fault."**

Everyone had a blank look on their faces for a few seconds, and then Piper asked, "He didn't really just say that, did he?"

Everyone who knew him just chuckled, and Nico said, "He makes comments like that all the time, you get used to it."

"Just like his father," said Athena, and Poseidon just frowned back at her.

**She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it **_**was **_**my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.**

Everyone laughed at that, and the Travis said, "Wow, does that make Poseidon the God of Plumbing?"

Everyone laughed harder at that, and Poseidon just rolled his eyes.

**"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.**

**"Who?"**

**"Not who. What.**

Rachel huffed at Annabeth, who was about to say something, but was cut off by Leo.

"Uh… I don't think she-" he started, but was cut off by Annabeth, who said, "This was before Rachel was the Oracle, and Rachel, what's with huff, you did see her, er.. it?"

Rachel's response was to just huff at Annabeth, who smirked, knowing she won.

**The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."**

**I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.**

Poseidon smiled because his son was looking to him for answers, but he then frowned, knowing he couldn't give them to him.

**I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below.**

All of the Gods, and even some of the demigods had dreamy looks on their faces, and the Goddesses either, smirked, rolled their eyes, or glared at them.

**They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**

"Well he is… sort of," said Chris.

**I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.**

**"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."**

Everyone except Athena raised an eyebrow at Annabeth, and Thalia said, "Jealous are we?"

This caused Annabeth to blush and say back, "Shutup."

**"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."**

**Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You **_**are **_**home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."**

Jason was about to say something but Piper put a hand up and said, "We get it, not the only safe place." Everyone chuckled, while Jason just blushed and try to glare at them, but it really didn't work.

**"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"**

"He is the only mentally disturbed one, apart from Nico, that is," said Thalia, which caused Nico to pout and everyone else to chuckle.

**"I mean **_**not human. **_**Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."**

**"Half-human and half-what?"**

A couple people sighed, but most of them were getting used to how slow he was, so they just decided to start ignoring it.

**"I think you know."**

A couple people raised a questioning eyebrow at Annabeth, but realized that he probably knew by now.

**I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled a little bit at that.

**"God," I said. "Half-god."**

"Finally," Clarisse said, while almost everyone else nodded in agreement.

**Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."**

**"That's ... crazy."**

"Never mind," said Clarisse, obviously annoyed.

**"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"**

**"But those are just—" I almost said **_**myths **_**again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, **_**I **_**might be considered a myth.**

"He already is," said Piper.

**"But if all the kids here are half-gods—"**

**"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."**

**"Then who's your dad?"**

Athena's expression turned hard at this, while Annabeth winced, because she knew he was probably relating the question to himself, and didn't mean to offend her, but she still was really mean to him afterwards.

**Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.**

Annabeth sighed, but knew that at the time, it was a very sensitive subject.

**"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."**

**"He's human."**

**"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"**

All of the Girls and Goddesses, minus Annabeth, nodded in agreement, and Artemis scowled.

"He didn't mean it like that," said Annabeth, which caused most of the Girls and Goddesses to relax.

**"Who's your mom, then?"**

**"Cabin six."**

**"Meaning?"**

**Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."**

Athena smiled at her daughter.

**Okay, I thought. Why not?**

Athena huffed annoyance at that, but didn't say anything, knowing that the _sea spawn was just trying to relate it to himself, but it doesn't mean I have to like it… or him, for that matter._

**"And my dad?"**

**"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."**

**"Except my mother. She knew."**

Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, and Poseidon smiled at that, but Poseidon's was more wistful.

**"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."**

**"My dad would have. He loved her."**

Poseidon and Annabeth both nodded and smiled.

**Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble.**

**"Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."**

**"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"**

All of the demigods looked down at that, knowing that it was the reason that the demigods who fought for Kronos, or at least most of them, did it for that reason.

**Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."**

All of the Gods and Goddesses, except Hera, looked down at that

**I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.**

The Gods and Goddesses were both guilty and angry at that.

**"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"**

**"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter,**

Before either Goddess could comment, Annabeth said, "Sorry, I was mistaken," an answer, that both of the Goddesses were satisfied with, knowing how hard it is for Athena and her children to admit they were wrong.

**you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."**

**"So monsters can't get in here?"**

**Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."**

Annabeth winced, remembering what happened to Percy in the Capture the Flag game.

**"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"**

**"Practice fights. Practical jokes."**

Clarisse grinned at the practice fights comment, while the Stolls grinned at the practical jokes comment.

**"Practical jokes?"**

Clarisse stopped smiling, and Katie glared at the Stolls, who, in return, just high-fived and smiled even brighter, remembering the joke they pulled on Katie and her cabin.

**"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."**

Demeter and Katie smiled at the mention of their strawberries.

**"So ... you're a year-rounder?"**

**Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.**

Athena gasped, which was only noticed by a few demigods who were seated near her, and Annabeth. She gave her daughter a look that silently asked _is that your father's? _Annabeth answered her with a slight nod, to which Athena smiled back at.

**"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."**

**"Why did you come so young?"**

**She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."**

Piper, Jason, Leo, and Poseidon raised an eyebrow at Annabeth, who just blushed but said nothing, still embarrassed and slightly ashamed that she was mean to him at first, even though she had no reason to.

**"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"**

Those were remembered that next year, he did just that, smirked, while everyone else gave them confused looks.

**"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."**

**"Unless?"**

**"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time …"**

Annabeth and Grover winced, remembering what happened to Luke on his quest and what he was like after it.

**Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.**

**"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—"**

**"Ambrosia."**

Apollo smiled, which caused Artemis to glare at him.

**"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."**

**Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you **_**do **_**know some thing?"**

A couple demigods gave Annabeth fake astonished looks, and some of them had a hand on their face and shock their heads jokingly, but all were laughing a little bit. All of this caused Annabeth yell, "Shut up!"

This just caused all of them to laugh harder, and Travis said, "We weren't laughing Annie. Are you sure your brain is okay?"

Everyone stopped laughing when Travis was knocked unconscious by Annabeth, who glared at them, daring anyone else to comment. Athena smiled proudly at her daughter.

**"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"**

**She clenched her fists.**

Grover and Thalia smiled a little bit, knowing how much Annabeth hated not knowing things.

**"I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so **_**normal**_**."**

Some of the Gods and Goddesses scoffed at the _normal _part, while the rest were deep in thought, wondering _what was wrong?_

**"You've been to Olympus?"**

**"Some of us year-rounders—Luke**

Thalia and Annabeth winced at the mention of Luke, while Hermes at first smiled, and then, seeing the reactions of the two girls, frowned, realizing that what was going to happen to his son, was going to happen quicker than he thought.

**and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."**

**"But... how did you get there?"**

**"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already.**

Annabeth sighed as she received a few questioning glances, though most realized that until she knew him better, she wouldn't know that he knew _nothing._

**"You **_**are **_**a New Yorker, right?"**

"Are most demigods from New York since that is closer to the Olympus, or are they scattered everywhere in the country?" asked Piper.

"They are everywhere, although there are more of children of certain Gods or Goddesses if their parents have a stronger influence in a certain state or area," answered Annabeth.

**"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.**

"What would you have done if he did point that out?" asked Rachel.

"I probably would have rolled my eyes at him, which would have just left him more confused," answered Annabeth, and a few Goddesses and girls smirked, while some of the Gods and demigods frowned.

**"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. **

Zeus and the demigods who didn't know what had happened were deep in thought wondering _what has me / Zeus / dad so angry?_

**When you came, I was hoping ... I mean— Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon.**

A couple of people smirked at Annabeth, Athena smiled at her daughter because _at least for a little while she remembered that Poseidon was bad_, and Annabeth just scolded herself, still a little upset that she was really mean to him when she found out his parentage, which in turn could have made him hate her, _if he wasn't so perfect_, she finished thinking dreamily.

Aphrodite just gave her a knowing look, which caused Annabeth to blush, look away, and think about anything else.

**But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."**

Cue glances from the Stolls who were the only ones who were stupid enough to realize that Annabeth didn't know Percy yet, or that he didn't know _anything._

**I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.**

Artemis sighed and said, "Boys and their stomachs."

All of the girls and Goddesses nodded their heads in agreement, while all of the guys had a dreamy look on their faces, all thinking about their favorite dish to eat.

**"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm **_**not **_**too young. If they would just tell me the problem …"**

Athena nodded agreeing with her daughter, if anyone's children could solve the problem, and what a problem it was, it was her children.

**I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.**

Annabeth blushed, showing that she had been doing just that.

Thalia leaned over and whispered in her ear, "he could already read you, just like we could tell you two were perfect for each other instantly, even if it took you guys years."

Annabeth glared at her, which caused her to snicker back at her best friend.

**Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.**

"Those are actually my kids and who belong in my cabin, not your kids who you are too lazy to claim," said Hermes, while the Gods and Goddesses who had children avoided his gaze.

Chris, however, was glaring at his father because, even though he wouldn't have moved into a different cabin, he would have liked to have known who his father was. Seeing this, Clarisse took his hand, which caused Chris to remove his glare, and Aphrodite to squeal silently.

**Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.**

**The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.**

Hermes, Annabeth, and Thalia winced, Piper, Leo, and Jason had curious looks on their faces, and the rest of the demigods either kept their faces passive or glared at nothing in particular.

**"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."**

Hermes gave a week smile at this, because he was still proud of his son, and knew that even if his son didn't like him, he was still his son and his genes (AN: I know the Gods don't have DNA, so they wouldn't have genes, but just roll with it.) were passed down to Luke, just like they were the rest of his children.

**I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.**

Hermes shook his head, letting those who felt the same way as Percy did at the time know that he did in fact steal the toiletries.

**I said, "Thanks."**

**"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"**

**"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."**

**"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."**

Annabeth and Thalia faces darkened, knowing Luke's life was about to get a lot harder. However, the repetitive actions of their daughters did not go unnoticed by Athena and Zeus, who raised an eyebrow at them, but did not say anything.

**The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.**

Thalia sighed saying only loud enough for the demigods to hear her, "That's what he wanted people think, that he was superman and didn't have any problems, and he was different from everyone else in the world."

**"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.**

Hermes smiled a little bit relishing in the fact that his son still knew he was his father.

**He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."**

_He probably would have gutted you if he knew you were a son of Poseidon then _thought Annabeth sadly, thinking about how she wished Luke was still alive, but felt happier knowing Percy was alive. However, she felt sad again, thinking about how he probably didn't even remember anything from his past, and more importantly, her.

Aphrodite gave Annabeth a confused look, because her motions were jumping back and forth between happy and sad love, and brotherly and true love.

**"The wing-footed messenger guy."**

Hermes smiled at the title Percy gave him, for he liked Percy already and hoped his future self felt the same way.

**"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."**

**I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.**

All of the demigod, minus Leo, Piper, and Jason, thought _He definitely meant to call him a nobody._

**"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.**

**"Once."**

Hermes, Annabeth, and Thalia winced, remembering the time when Luke met his father.

This, however, was once again noticed by Zeus and Athena, who shared a glance that silently asked _What happened with Luke? He is a good boy. _They, however, failed to notice Hermes' looks when his son was mentioned, for if they had, they might have been able to put the pieces together and interrogate Hermes.

**I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.**

Hermes thought _No! I would never hurt Luke, no matter what he did, or will do. I love him._

**Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."**

A few of the demigods scoffed, but luckily none of the Gods or Goddesses noticed. Those who had scoffed, however, were glared at fiercely by Thalia and Annabeth.

**He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.**

Hermes smiled, thinking that maybe his son wouldn't turn bad as soon as he thought.

**I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"**

**Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."**

All of the Gods, Goddesses, and demigods, minus Apollo and Rachel who frowned, nodded their heads in agreement.

**"What do you mean?"**

**His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp."**

The Stolls wiggled their eyebrows at Annabeth, who blushed in return, and said, "Shut up." This caused most of the campers to laugh a little.

Athena, however, was just trying to keep a straight face, because she really did not want her daughter hating her, because of something she did or said.

**"Somebody special?"**

Most of the demigods glanced at Annabeth once again, who just ignored them.

**"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."**

Annabeth frowned, not knowing that was what Luke thought about how much Annabeth wanted to get a quest.

**The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled at that.

**Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"**

**The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.**

Artemis and Thalia smiled.

**We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods— and when I say out of the woods, I mean **_**straight **_**out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.**

All of the Gods, plus Grover, had dreamy looks on their faces while the Goddesses and girls glared, rolled their eyes, or laughed at them.

**In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.**

Everyone kept up their previous behaviors, except the girls and Goddesses who were laughing at the Gods stopped.

**At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.**

Annabeth smiled a little thinking about Percy's body, but quickly wiped it off her face, hoping no one saw her, because she really did not want to be made fun of or explain herself in front of the Olympians, but her mother in particular.

Aphrodite and Thalia, however, noticed a gave her looks but, didn't say anything, to which Annabeth was very grateful for.

**I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.**

Dionysus smiled, thinking about his twin sons, but was unaware of the confused looks on Piper's, Leo's, and Jason's faces, or the sad looks on the other demigods faces.

**Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.**

Athena smiled thinking about her children, while Annabeth smiled a little, but she did really miss her siblings.

**Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.**

Clarisse scowled, because she didn't like being reminded of the incident, and because she hadn't gotten over it.

The Stolls snickered behind her back, and were lucky that she didn't hear them.

**Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"**

All of the Gods and Goddesses smiled.

**Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"**

They all nodded towards the demigods.

**Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—nonalcoholic, of course."**

Dionysus frowned, but wisely chose not to say anything, because of the look Zeus was giving him.

**I said, "Cherry Coke."**

**The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.**

**Then I had an idea. "**_**Blue **_**Cherry Coke."**

Everyone smiled at that, though some were a little sad, remembering that Mrs. Jackson inspired the blue food.

**The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.**

**I took a cautious sip. Perfect.**

**I drank a toast to my mother.**

Hera smiled, thinking that that was how a son should view and act towards his mother.

This caused Hephaestus to roll his eyes at her.

**She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...**

Hades smiled evilly, which caused all of the demigods, except Nico, to back away from him and Poseidon to glare at him.

**"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.**

**I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.**

**I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.**

**"Come on," Luke told me.**

**As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.**

**Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."**

**"You're kidding."**

"Nope," Apollo said dreamily, which caused Artemis to roll her eyes at him.

**His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.**

**Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."**

Hermes smiled brightly, thinking that _maybe look doesn't really hate me after all._

**I was next.**

**I wished I knew what god's name to say.**

Poseidon frowned at that.

**Finally, I made a silent plea. **_**Whoever you are, tell me. Please.**_

"I will son, when the time is right," said Poseidon.

**I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.**

**When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.**

**It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.**

Hermes smirked at Ares, who glared in return, painfully remembering the time he had tried to live off of it.

**When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.**

**Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."**

Ares and Clarisse smiled.

**A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.**

Their smiles fell and they glared at the book at that.

**"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."**

Poseidon glared at Dionysus, while the demigods just rolled their eyes, used to Mr. D's antics.

**Chiron murmured something.**

**"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."**

**Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.**

Poseidon smiled a little bit, thinking that his son may be beginning to feel at home.

**Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.**

**My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.**

Everyone, except Clarisse and Ares had a sad smile

**When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.**

**That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.**

**I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.**

"Ohh, foreshadowing," said Chris.

"That's it, who wants to read next? Asked Piper.

"I will Pipes," said Jason, as she handed him the book, and when their hands touched, they both blushed for a second, but it quickly went away, when they remembered they were in front of the Gods, but Aphrodite still noticed, and smiled at her daughter.

"**We Capture a Flag."**

**Well, that's it. I shouldn't have posted this until I was already halfway done with the next chapter, and I will be doing that from now on so I can update faster from now on. Also, I have been thinking about doing a story about Percy's and Annabeth's lives a few years after the Heroes of Olympus stories, and I was wondering if you guys think I should do it after I finish doing the reading the series or at the same time (I won't be starting it for a few weeks, and before I even post the first chapter I will be done with at least the few 5 – 10 chapters, so I can update faster. However, It would cause me to update both stories a little les frequently, but I personally think that I write stories better and faster when I come up with everything, not when I do things like the reading the series where I have to write things that pertain to what the characters are reading in the books at the time. Please let me know what you think I should do, and don't forget to tell me who I should bring in the story next. However, I will tell you the only characters I will bring in are Percy, Reyna, Hazel, Frank, Octavian, and Dakota. No one else as I don't feel I know enough about them personality-wise to be able to use them effectively in the story. Sorry if the Author's Note is long, but I needed to say a lot, but that is all. Don't forget to review and that other good stuff. Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time.**

**Nicene Quotes**


	10. Chapter 10 : Capturing A Flag

**Chapter 10: We Capture a Flag**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

"**We Capture a Flag," **read Jason.

**The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.**

**Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English.**

All of the demigods winced at that, hating reading English, and still wondering why the Gods and Goddesses had to make their brains hardwired for reading Greek.

**After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.**

"He can do much better than that now," said Annabeth.

"How do you get him to read? Use some naughty methods of persuasion Annie?" asked Connor which caused all of the Gods and guys to laugh, while Clarisse knocked Connor out cold.

Annabeth was blushing beet red and gave Clarisse a look that said, "_Thankyou_." Clarisse nodded in return, because she was glad to have a good reason to get the Stolls to shut up.

Athena throughout the entire time, had a look of anger on her face, because that comment went too far for her to restrain her facial expressions, but she was able to restrain herself from incinerating the child of Hermes, and the sea spawn.

**The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at. Chiron tried to teach me archery,**

Everyone who had seen Percy try to shoot with a bow and arrow winced, knowing that would go terribly.

**but we found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to desnag a stray arrow out of his tail.**

Everyone laughed at that.

**Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.**

Almost everyone snickered, and Leo said, "It does sound sad when you put it that way."

**And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.**

"Damn right," muttered Ares under his breath, and he gave Clarisse a nod and a smile, to which Clarisse didn't know how to react to, because her father had never smiled at her before.

**"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.**

Both Ares and Clarisse nodded.

**The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.**

A lot of people smiled, and Nico said, "Wait until he gets to sword training, then they'll see what skills he has."

**I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids.**

Both Gods nodded their heads agreeing, though Apollo wouldn't have minded if his son was Percy, for he did like him.

**I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork**

Hephaestus and Leo smiled.

**or—gods forbid— Dionysus's way with vine plants.**

"The feeling is mutual Perry," said Dionysus which caused all of the demigods to roll their eyes at him.

**Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. \**

Hermes only half-smiled, because Luke sort of complimented him, but he and his children were definitely masters at some skills.

**But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn't know what to make of me either.**

"No one did," said Annabeth.

"I knew he was a punk and a wimp," said Clarisse which caused everyone to roll their eyes at her and Chris to give her hand a squeeze before letting it go, because he knew Clarisse didn't like to be affectionate in public.

**Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon,**

"Just like Travis," commented Connor, which caused everyone to laugh.

"Shut up, I don't smell Katie!" yelled Travis, though both he and Katie's faces were the color of strawberries.

This, however, only caused everyone to laugh a little louder, and Demeter to eye Travis carefully, and make a mental note to watch the Son of Hermes from now on, to decide if he was both a good influence on, and good enough for, her daughter.

Annabeth just smiled, happy that the embarrassing relationship talks were not about her and Percy for once.

**even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad. **

Poseidon and Annabeth both smiled a little sadly at that, and Poseidon really wanted his future self to claim Percy soon, because he didn't like that his son was feeling the way he was at the time.

**Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile.**

Poseidon smiled _I did visit you once, when you were a baby my son._

**I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...**

"If she isn't dead, then yes, but you will have to go through me and my realm to get her back," said Hades, with a slight smile.

Poseidon glared at his brother, and Nico said, "I still don't get why you would take her, she is so nice?"

Hades' smile dropped, because if his son liked Mrs. Jackson, then he probably should avoid doing anything that would make his only son mad at him.

**I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. **

Hermes winced at that.

**So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?**

All of the Gods and Goddesses who had children glared at Hera, knowing that even though Zeus made the law official, it was Hera who gave him the idea and pressured him into making it a law, because she couldn't have any demigod children, so she didn't care.

Hera ignored all of the glares and just sat up high on her thrown, while Zeus looked down at his shoes, thinking _Why did I let her talk me into making that law? I can't even see my children because of a law I made!_

**Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.**

Hermes smiled a little bit, knowing his son was a great swordsman.

**We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay.**

"Ego much?" joked Nico, while everyone who knew him smiled, even though they knew Percy had no ego at all.

**At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.**

"Very good," whispered Annabeth.

**The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long.**

Annabeth smiled, knowing Riptide was made just for him.

The Stolls and Clarisse scowled, because Percy used his sword to threaten the Stolls out of pranking him or Annabeth, and Clarisse didn't like how whenever her and Percy fought in the Arena, Riptide always ended up at her throat.

**Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.**

**We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.**

"Or so he could show off," muttered Chris, while Clarisse gave his hand a light squeeze, which caused Aphrodite to smile at them.

**"Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."**

All of the demigods who knew Percy smiled, knowing that Percy now had that title, except he may be the best ever.

**"Maybe he'll go easy on me," I said.**

**The camper snorted.**

All of the demigods who know about what Luke would go on to do looked down, or had angry looks on their faces, knowing Luke would have rather killed Percy, and would never go easy on him.

**Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Percy," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" **_**Whap! **_**"Lunge!" **_**Whap! **_**"Now, back!" **_**Whap!**_

Hermes smiled, proud of his son for both, his skill and the fact that he was training everyone else and trying to make everyone else better with a sword, even if he was showing off a little bit.

**By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled, knowing Percy was now going to show just how good he could become with a sword at the time, and how good he was in the present.

**Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward.**

Thalia and Nico muttered, "Lucky…" under their breaths.

**"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."**

**Great, I thought. Let's all watch Percy get pounded.**

Annabeth, Thalia, and Poseidon frowned, while Hermes was smiling smugly, but was careful not to let Poseidon see, because he really didn't want to be drowned in the Atlantic Ocean.

**The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.**

The Stolls grinned, finally remembering what had happened, and how Luke had lost to Percy on Percy's first day at camp.

A few of the other demigods show them questioning looks, but didn't say anything, figuring that the Stolls were just thinking about something else.

**"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."**

"It probably took Perce all of 10 seconds to learn how to master it," said Nico, and all of the demigods who knew Percy nodded their heads in agreement.

However, all of the Gods and Goddesses, Jason, Leo, and Piper had to "pick up their jaws off of the ground" because if it took him that long to master a technique that many swordsman can never do in their lifetime, then he would be one of, if not the most powerful demigod, or at least the swordsman, of all time.

After Poseidon recovered from his momentary shock, he smiled smugly at the rest of the Gods and Goddesses, because of how powerful _his _son was.

**He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.**

**"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"**

**I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.**

_This is probably when Luke realized that Percy was both more powerful, and more of a threat to him, and that's why he had the hellhound… _Annabeth trailed off in her own thoughts, because she remembered seeing Percy all torn up and even though at the time, she wasn't as scared, remembering what he looked like at the time, definitely crept its way into a few of her nightmares.

**The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn't right.**

**I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, What the heck?**

All of the demigods and Poseidon smiled, while Hermes frowned, both because he knew he Luke was going to lose, and because his other sons seemed happy that Luke gotten beaten and probably embarrassed.

**I tried the disarming maneuver.**

**My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.**

_**Clang.**_

**Luke's sword rattled against the stones.**

Poseidon sent a smug smile towards Hermes, who just ignored it.

**The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.**

_If only he would have killed him them, it would have saved a lot of trouble _thought Clarisse.

**The other campers were silent.**

**I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."**

Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico smiled at that, while Jason raised an eyebrow thinking _He may be a amazing fighter, but if he does things like apologizing when you win a fight, everyone at my Camp will tear him to pieces for showing such weakness._

**For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.**

"All of us were," said Travis, while Connor couldn't help but grinning, which made Hermes even more confused about why his sons seemed extremely happy that their brother got beat.

**"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"**

Poseidon's smile left his face, knowing that Percy's short burst of energy was gone and he would probably be beat very easily.

**I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.**

"Probably wanted to show that he was still the best swordsman, and he wasn't going to let a twelve-year-old outshine him," grumbled Connor under his breath.

**This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.**

Hermes sent a somewhat smug smile to Poseidon, who just rolled his eyes in response.

**After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"**

All of the demigods who knew Percy, except for Clarisse, snorted.

**Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword..."**

"A lot more than you," said Clarisse, while all of the demigods except Thalia and Annabeth nodded, because they missed Luke and even though they knew that Percy was better than him, they didn't want to say anything bad about Luke.

**Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall.**

A couple of people frowned or winced at the mention of the wall, while Grover and Annabeth smiled.

**Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.**

Annabeth winced, thinking about some of the things that could have happened to Percy at the Roman camp.

**We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.**

Grover winced, remembering that it had not gone well at all. His reaction did not go unnoticed by Thalia and Annabeth, who in response, glared daggers at Dionysus, who just ignored them as best he could; because he knew he couldn't say anything with all of the other Olympians here.

**His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.**

**"Fine," he said. "Just great."**

"Apparently Percy's sarcasm is wearing off on you goat boy," joked Thalia, while Grover frowned at the nickname.

**"So your career's still on track?"**

**He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"**

**"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask.**

All of the demigods who knew Percy, except for Connor and Travis, raised an eyebrow, shocked that Percy actually showed some tact and wasn't blunt with Grover in the situation.

**"He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"**

"Not yet," whispered Grover under his breath.

**Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."**

Annabeth and Grover shared a glance and then smiled at each other, knowing that was exactly what happened.

**My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"**

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want **_**me **_**along?"**

All of the demigods who knew Percy gave Grover strange looks, not believing that Grover could ever think that Percy would want him along.

Grover just blushed and said, "I didn't know him as well as we all do now, even though I knew him better than most people did at the time."

**"Of course I'd want you along!"**

Annabeth and Grover smiled.

**Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."**

**I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.**

Hera, Poseidon, Artemis, and Zeus smiled brightly at the mention of their cabins, and Poseidon really hoped he claimed him soon, so that Percy could live in their as soon as possible.

**"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."**

"It's more for my hunters than anything, but I probably wouldn't be happy if I was left out," said Artemis.

"At least she has a throne on Olympus, and a cabin," muttered Hades under his breath.

**"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"**

Both Hades and Nico frowned, thinking that it should have been, but Nico smiled afterwards, knowing that, thanks to Percy, his father would get a cabin.

**Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals.**

"Just like you shouldn't!" said Hera while glaring at Zeus, who just ignored her.

**That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."**

The three brothers, Thalia, Jason, and Nico smiled smugly at everyone else.

**"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades."**

There smiles just grew even more.

**"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."**

**"Zeus got the sky," I remembered. "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."**

Zeus, Jason, and Poseidon smiled, while Hades, Nico, and Thalia, who was muttering, "I hate being in the sky," frowned.

**"Uh-huh."**

**"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."**

Both Nico and Hades, who was glaring at all of the Olympians, frowned. Nico then smiled, and quickly went in a shadow, willed the shadow to go to his father, who was looking at him questioningly, and whispered something in his father's ear, then went back to his place like nothing had happened. All of the Gods and Goddesses gave Hades questioning glances when he was smiling brightly, or as brightly as the Lord of the Dead could, for no apparent reason.

**"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."**

Grover blushed, shrank down, and muttered, "Sorry," under Nico's glare, who was hit upside the head by Thalia, though not very hard, because she did understand where he was coming from, and how it would be a very touchy subject for him.

**"But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"**

Everyone on Olympus, except Jason and Leo, sighed, knowing the reason for why they were empty.

**Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably.**

**"About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes.**

Hera snorted, and then glared at Zeus, who just ignored her, saying, "Way to keep your word."

Hades nodded his head in agreement, but was also glaring at Poseidon, but was able to not say anything because he remembered that he had Nico her, so still had children.

**Their children were just too powerful. **

Jason, Nico, and Thalia smiled smugly at the other demigods, who just rolled their eyes at them.

**They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."**

**Thunder boomed.**

**I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."**

**Grover nodded.**

**"And the brothers kept their word—no kids?"**

"Nope!" was the response from everyone on Olympus, except Zeus, Poseidon, Thalia, Hades, and Jason.

**Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon.**

Zeus, who was being glared at by Hades and Hera, glared at Grover, who shrunk under the glare.

This caused Thalia to say, "Dad, stop it!" which did indeed cause the Lord of the Sky to move his glare from Grover, who smiled a thank you at Thalia, to a spot on the floor.

**There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo—he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia .. . well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."**

Everyone except Hera, Hades, who was being glared at by Zeus, and Thalia, who just winced, was sadly at Thalia.

**"But that isn't fair.' It wasn't the little girl's fault."**

Thalia frowned, both because she didn't like being called a "little girl," and because she never really got to do anything that a normal little girl got to do, because she was a demigod.

**Grover hesitated. "Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods.**

Cue the children of the big three to smile smugly, while those who knew Percy thought _Percy is definitely more powerful than any other half-bloods._

**They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do.**

"Yes there was," grumbled Zeus.

**He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."**

**He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died,**

Thalia, Zeus, Grover, and Annabeth winced at that.

**Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."**

Jason, Leo, and Piper were staring at Thalia with wide eyes.

Zeus had a look of extreme sadness written on his face.

Thalia, Grover, and Annabeth were looking down with pained looks etched on their faces, remembering the events of that day, and the pain they felt afterwards.

"Well, at least I'm here now," said Thalia, in an attempt to break the silence that had begun.

**I stared at the pine in the distance.**

"He's checking you out Thals," whispered Nico, which caused said girl to put 1000 volts into him, which effectively shut him up.

**The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much.**

"Good, he knows I'm more powerful than him," joked Thalia, which caused Annabeth to roll her eyes and say, "He probably thinks you are too, even though we both know you're not more powerful than him. Thalia just stuck her tongue out at Annabeth in response.

**I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?**

All of the playfulness left the atmosphere at the reminder of Mrs. Jackson's "temporary" fate.

**"Grover," I said, "Have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"**

Everyone, who didn't know about Percy's first quest, had shocked expressions on their faces, not believing that Percy was going to go to the Hades, literally, to get his mother back.

Poseidon had a worried look on his face, knowing that if Percy went to his brother, he had very little chance of coming out alive.

Hades simply raised an eyebrow at the book, wondering if his nephew was truly going to "visit" him.

**"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."**

**"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"**

**"No. Never. Orpheus came close... . Percy, you're not seriously thinking—"**

**"No," I lied.**

"I knew he was lying," said Grover.

**"I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"**

"They usually are," said Grover.

**Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. **

"He hadn't," said Grover.

**"Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."**

"Way to boost his ego goat-boy," complained Thalia, even though she, and everyone who knew Percy, knew that he had no ego at all.

**"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."**

"You are Seaweed Brain," whispered Annabeth under her breath.

**Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you **_**were**_—**you know—you'd never **_**ever **_**be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"**

"You mean "Goddess of Revenge," which means that his immortal parent would have to be his mother?" asked Athena rhetorically, while looking at Grover like he was an idiot.

Grover just blushed and said, "Sorry, I was under pressure and wasn't thinking about what I was saying."

**I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.**

**That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.**

**At last, it was time for capture the flag.**

Ares, Athena, and all of the demigods smiled at that.

**When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.**

**Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree.**

Athena and Annabeth smiled.

**From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.**

Ares and Clarisse smiled.

**I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"**

**"Yeah."**

**"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"**

**"Not always," he said. "But often."**

**"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do— repaint the flag?"**

**He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."**

**"Whose side are we on?"**

**He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And **_**you **_**are going to help."**

"He definitely did that," said Annabeth, while looking smugly at Clarisse, who just glared back at her.

**The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins.**

The said two brothers, cheered and high-fived.

**Apparently, privileges had been traded—shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support.**

Athena nodded at Annabeth in approval of, both, the methods she used to form alliances, and at who she formed them with.

**Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus.**

The Gods and Goddesses whose cabins were mentioned smiled, along with their children.

**From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them.**

Dionysus smiled, but did not notice when all of the future demigods, minus Piper, Leo, and Jason who were looking at the other demigods in confusion, winced.

**Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. **

Demeter and Katie smiled.

"They can be plenty aggressive, trust me," muttered Travis, but Katie heard him and smacked him upside the head.

**Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. **

Aphrodite smiled, but Piper just frowned because she liked Capture the Flag, but she was the only one of her siblings who actually played it, and she wished they would play more often, or at least the ones she liked would play more often.

**Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem.**

Hephaestus and Leo smiled and Leo said, "Our automatons cause the biggest problems."

Leo's comment caused all of the demigods who to glare at him, having experienced them first-hand.

**That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.**

Ares and Clarisse smiled, while Chris whispered, "I don't think you're ugly," to Clarisse, which caused her to blush a little and squeeze Chris' hand a little harder.

Aphrodite smiled at the young couple, while Ares glared at Chris, thinking _If he does one thing to her, I will run him over with my motorcycle_.

**Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.**

**"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"**

**He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.**

**"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"**

Everyone on Olympus just sighed.

**Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."**

Annabeth winced, remembering what happened with the hellhound because she put Percy on border control, and because she told Luke where Percy was supposed to be.

**My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.**

**Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"**

**We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.**

**I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."**

**She kept marching.**

"So you guys weren't the best of friends when you first met?" asked Rachel.

Annabeth blushed in response and looked down, ashamed that she was mean to him for absolutely no reason.

Rachel thought that Annabeth was thinking about how Percy was missing, so she just decided to let it go and just gave Annabeth a sympathetic look.

**"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"**

**Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.**

Everyone glanced at her curiously, which caused Annabeth to blush and say, "He was in the Hermes cabin at the time, so I couldn't be sure that he wasn't your son Lord Hermes." Everyone nodded accepting the answer.

**"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. **

Clarisse smiled at the mention of "Tamer," while a couple demigods winced, having been on the receiving end of it, and had their bones rattled from his electricity.

**Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"**

**"Border patrol, whatever that means."**

**"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."**

**She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.**

"Oohh, ignored!" yelled Connor, which caused the Gods and boys to snicker and Clarisse to smack him upside the head.

**"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."**

Annabeth looked down, ashamed, yet again, because of how she treated Percy when they first met.

**It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view**_**. **_**Annabeth stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.**

**Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.**

**There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?**

"No, just don't die," snorted Apollo, which caused Artemis to roll her eyes at him and smack him upside the head.

**Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.**

Apollo smiled at the mention of one of his children.

**Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual.**

**Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.**

Everyone in the room tensed up, even the demigods who were there and knew what that growl came from.

**I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.**

**Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.**

**On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.**

Ares smiled, while Poseidon frowned.

**"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.**

Poseidon shot Clarisse a glare, to which she ignored.

**Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made me feel any better.**

**They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.**

"He would never run. He may be a wimp, but he isn't a coward," said Clarisse, and everyone was unsure as to whether a compliment or not, so they chose not to comment.

**I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid the Minotaur. They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.**

Poseidon winced, while Ares' smile grew.

**Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back.**

Clarisse glared at the book because _My spear is NOT stupid!_

**Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.**

**They could've kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.**

Athena shook her head thinking _They have the same problem as their father, they boast too much. It will be their downfall. _

**"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab his hair."**

Annabeth frowned, thinking about how much she loved his hair, and how badly she wanted to run her hands through it when she kissed him.

Aphrodite gave Annabeth a puzzled look wondering _Why is she emitting all of this sad love? I wonder if they broke up or something? I will have to find out what happened._

**I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.**

**"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this guy. Really scared."**

"You should be," said Rachel, a comment in which Clarisse chose not to respond to.

**"The flag is that way," I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come out that way.**

"It didn't," said Clarisse, while Chris just rolled his eyes at her.

"He shouldn't have told them where the flag was," scolded Athena, which made a couple of the Gods and Goddesses chuckle at her.

**"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid."**

**"You do that without my help," I told them. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.**

Most of the occupants of Olympus couldn't help the small smile that was on their lips at Percy's comment.

**Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-kebabbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.**

Poseidon was wincing left and right, and was giving Clarisse and Ares glares. Clarisse because she was the one inflicting pain, along with her cabin mates, and Ares because of the huge smile that had formed on his face.

**Seeing my own blood made me dizzy—warm and cold at the same time.**

**"No maiming," I managed to say.**

**"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege."**

"Who makes the punishments!" yelled Demeter. All of the demigods looked at Dionysus who was busy reading a wine magazine.

Hephaestus lit the magazine on fire, which caused Dionysus to drop the magazine, and growl at Hephaestus, until he say the glares that all of the other Olympians, minus Hera, were giving him.

"What!" yelled Dionysus.

"YOU need to make worse punishments for MAIMING, so that IT WON'T HAPPEN!" screeched Demeter.

"Fine," grumbled Dionysus.

All of the Gods and Goddesses eventually stopped glaring at the Wine God, and all of the demigods had smirks on their faces, because Mr. D finally got in trouble for what he was doing at Camp Half-Blood.

**He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash.**

Poseidon smiled smugly at Ares, who kept smiling, unaware that his children lost the second they pushed Percy into the creek.

**They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans.**

Now Ares' smile fell and turned into a scowl, which caused Poseidon to smile smugly at him.

**Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.**

A couple people were laughing, while Ares and Clarisse were glaring at anyone who was laughing.

**Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.**

Ares and Clarisse glared murderously at both the book and everyone else on Olympus, because they were all laughing hysterically.

**"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"**

**She probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.**

Another round of laughter ensued after that.

**Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.**

Hermes was smiling that his cabin captured the flag, and his beloved son Luke was the one to capture it.

Ares glared, eyes ablaze, at Hermes because Hermes' cabin captured his flag.

**"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."**

"Obviously," said Annabeth, which caused everyone to snicker, and Clarisse to glare at Annabeth.

**They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.**

**The game was over. We'd won.**

Athena smiled at her daughter, realizing that Annabeth had planned for that to happen.

**I was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."**

**I looked, but she wasn't there.**

**"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.**

Athena smiled at Annabeth, realizing that the Yankees cap was a birthday gift from herself, to her daughter.

**I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. "You set me up," I said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."**

"Hee… H-He figured it out?" said Thalia, bewildered that Percy had the brain capacity to do so.

Everyone who knew Percy chuckled, while Jason, Leo, and Piper were curious as to how the Hero of Olympus was apparently not the "brightest of the bunch."

**Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."**

"You should copyright that phrase," said Nico.

All of the other demigods nodded their heads in agreement.

**"A plan to get me pulverized."**

**"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but ..." She shrugged. "You didn't need help."**

Poseidon smiled smugly at Ares, who just grumbled something incoherent under his breath.

**Then she noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"**

**"Sword cut," I said. "What do you think?"**

**"No. It **_**was **_**a sword cut. Look at it."**

Piper's, Leo's, and Jason's eyes widened, shocked at Percy's ability.

Their response caused everyone else to chuckle at them.

**The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.**

**"I—I don't get it," I said.**

"That's more like it," said Thalia, and relaxed her shoulders to show that she was relieved.

**Annabeth was thinking hard.**

"Like always," said Rachel.

**I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Percy."**

**"What—"**

**"Just do it."**

"He always does whatever you tell him to," whispered Thalia to Annabeth, which caused both of them to smile brightly.

**I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.**

"Awwwww! You're his heroine!" squealed Aphrodite, which caused everyone to cover their ears in an attempt to not lose their hearing. Annabeth didn't even blush, because she was to busy covering her ears.

**"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is **_**not **_**good. I didn't want ... I assumed it would be Zeus... ."**

Zeus glared half-heartedly at Annabeth, because he was in too much pain to do a proper glare.

**Before I could ask what she meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.**

Everyone in the room tensed at that.

**The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: **_**"Stand ready! My bow!"**_

**Annabeth drew her sword.**

**There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.**

**It was looking straight at me.**

Poseidon let out what sounded like a whimper.

**Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Percy, run!"**

**She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.**

Everyone let out a sigh of relief, knowing that with the Hellhound gone, Percy would be safe.

**By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.**

Poseidon and Annabeth winced, picturing that happening, and then thinking of anything else, in order to get that image out of their minds.

**Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.**

_**"Di immortales!"**_ **Annabeth said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... they're not supposed to ..."**

**"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."**

A lot of the demigods glared at the book, picturing it being Luke, and hoping he could have died from their glares before he helped Kronos.

**Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.**

"Good," said Connor under his breath.

**Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"**

Everyone looked at her like she was crazy. She said, "I was mad and wasn't thinking about what I was saying," in response.

**"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.**

**We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.**

**"You're wounded," Annabeth told me. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."**

"No way…" said Leo, who had the same look on his face as a kid in a candy store.

**"I'm okay."**

**"No, you're not," she said. "Chiron, watch this."**

**I was too tired to argue.**

"Or just didn't want to argue with his true love," said Grover, only loud enough for the demigods to hear.

Annabeth glared daggers at him, which caused him to flinch and mutter, "Sorry." Annabeth smiled at him, happy that he learned not to say anything about Percy being her true love, even if it was true.

**I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.**

**Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.**

**"Look, I—I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry..."**

"He is so modest," said Hestia, and everyone on Olympus nodded their heads in agreement.

**But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.**

"He's being claimed," said Leo, which caused Piper to smack him upside the head and said, "Obviously, not shut up Repair Boy."

"Whatever Beauty Queen," was Leo's response.

**"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um ..."**

**By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled, knowing that Percy was happier knowing who his father was.

**"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is **_**really **_**not good."**

**"It is determined," Chiron announced.**

**All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.**

"We didn't," said Clarisse.

**"My father?" I asked, completely bewildered.**

**"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."**

"That's it. Who would like to read next?" asked Jason.

"I will," said Leo while Jason handed him the book.

"**I Am Offered A Quest."**

**That's it! I am sooooo sorry about the extremely long update. This chapter was both a lot longer than the other ones and I really didn't fell like writing until today, in which I wrote over half of the chapter. I will try to update more often, and I'll try to have the book done by at least the end of March, and my timetable for each book is about 3 months, at least the first 5. Also, don't forget to let me know who you think should be brought in next. I have a pretty good idea, and I'll let you know that it is two people, and a pair that no one has done yet, but if you guys really want someone else, I will try to put them in. Don't forget to review and that stuff. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and the story so far!**

**Nicene Quotes**


	11. Chapter 11 : A Quest Is Offerred

**Chapter 11: I Am Offered a Quest**

**3****rd**** Person P.O.V.**

"**I Am Offered a Quest," **read Leo.

**The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.**

Poseidon and Annabeth smiled.

**I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.**

All of the demigods apart from Thalia, Jason, Nico, and Annabeth smiled, thinking it would be fun to have a cabin all to their selves. Jason, Nico, and Thalia sighed, knowing that it was miserable, despite what one might expect. Annabeth, however, just stared off into space, remembering the conversation that she had had with Percy, where she found out that having a cabin all to himself was miserable, despite what she had previously thought.

**And I was absolutely miserable.**

All of the demigods, who thought it would be great, looked shocked.

**Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood—I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.**

Poseidon looked down sadly, glad that his son knew that he was his father, but sad that Percy had to feel like that because of it.

**Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back.**

The Stolls looked down, because they were, indeed, talking about it behind his back.

**The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one; that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.**

All of the demigods, minus Jason, Leo, and Piper, winced, remembering the invasion of camp by Kronos, and the two people who died during the fight. They all glanced at Mr. D and Apollo, wondering how they were going to take the news that Castor and Lee Fletcher died.

**The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.**

"You mean he was happy to bruise you up in the process…" grumbled Connor under his breath, and he received a glare, from Annabeth, for his comment, but he didn't care.

**"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."**

A few of the demigods winced, knowing how much torture that would be on Percy, especially when he was new to camp.

**Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes.**

Annabeth looked down, ashamed at the way she treated Percy at the time, especially how badly she reacted to finding out that his father was Poseidon.

**After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan …"**

Athena smiled at her daughter, happy that, at least for a little while, she was treating the sea spawn the way every sea spawn should be treated by her children.

**Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.**

"Why didn't he just tell me that then! I would have been happy to oblige and pound his face in!" yelled Clarisse, while Chris and Ares smiled at her, and all of the other demigods rolled their eyes at her.

**I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the **_**New York Daily News, **_**opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.**

_**BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER**_

_**FREAK CAR ACCIDENT**_

_**BY EILEEN SMYTHE**_

Everyone in the room looked down, remembering what had happened during that "accident."

_**Sally Jackson and son Percy are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken.**_

The Stolls and Leo grinned at that.

_**The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.**_

_**Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.**_

_**Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.**_

Everyone in the room, even Ares, for he knew it was wrong to treat a woman like that, scowled at the lie and began thinking of ways to torture Gabe.

_**Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Percy. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.**_

**The phone number was circled in black marker.**

All of the demigods, except Piper, Leo, and Jason, had the same thought _Luke_.

**I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.**

**"Lights out," I told myself miserably.**

Poseidon looked down sadly, angry at himself for not helping his son through his tough time, and even though he knew that Zeus' law forbade him to, he felt like he should have still done something, and he let both Percy Sally down.

**That night, I had my worst dream yet.**

All of the demigods grimaced, hating the constant dreams that they had.

**I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.**

**About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.**

Everyone looked at Zeus and Poseidon, while some of them smirked, thinking about how they were wrestlers in the dream.

**I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.**

"Hate it when that happens…" grumbled Thalia.

**Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, **_**Give it back! Give it back! **_**Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.**

Zeus huffed, while a couple people chuckled, thinking about Zeus as a kindergartner, because he did act like on half of the time.

**The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.**

**I yelled, **_**Stop it! Stop fighting!**_

**The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice**_**.**_

_**Come down, little hero, **_**the voice crooned. **_**Come down!**_

Everyone glanced at Hades, who just sighed.

Nico, however, glared at everyone, thinking about how his dad always got the blame for things, and hating how it had also affected his life.

**The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.**

**I woke up, sure I was falling.**

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, glad the dream was over.

**I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.**

Everyone looked at Zeus, who was busying looking at his shoes.

**I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.**

Everyone looked at Grover, who just waved back to a few of them, which caused everyone to smile a little bit.

**"Come in?"**

**Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you."**

Everyone looked at Dionysus, and some of the demigods groaned.

**"Why?"**

**"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."**

Dionysus, who was busy playing Pacman on a Nintendo DS, but still paying attention, paused his game, and glanced at Poseidon who was glaring at him.

**Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.**

"You and your father…" grumbled Zeus, under his breath.

**For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive.**

"It is…" grumbled both Zeus and Hades under their breaths.

**The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict.**

**Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.**

Everyone glanced at Zeus, who just shrugged.

**"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."**

"Or when Dad is angry," said Thalia with a sigh, while Zeus gave his daughter a somewhat hurt and curious expression, both

**I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"**

**He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."**

**I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.**

**But this storm ... this one was huge.**

Everyone except Dionysus glared at Zeus.

**At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.**

Everyone glanced at Zeus again.

**Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel chair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air.**

**"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."**

Poseidon and Annabeth glared at Dionysus.

**I waited.**

**"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."**

"Barnacle-Beard aye? You've been stealing your insults from Owl-Head over here," said Poseidon, to Dionysus, as he gestured to Athena.

Dionysus just shrugged and said, "It seemed to work," in response.

Athena, however, glared at Poseidon for the nick-name he gave her, but didn't say anything because she didn't wish to cause more tension between her and her daughter, by fighting with her daughter's boyfriend's father.

**A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.**

Thalia and Jason sighed at their father's dramatic tendencies.

**"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.**

**Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.**

The Stolls both smirked at Grover, which caused him to glare back at them.

**"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."**

"And because you're scared of Poseidon," stated Artemis as everyone looked over at Poseidon, who had an expression that showed he was thinking of millions of ways to kill and/or torture Dionysus.

All of the other Gods and Goddesses, bar Hera, were also glaring at Dionysus, angry at him for thinking about hurting their children/hunters.

**"Spontaneous combustion **_**is **_**a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.**

All of the demigods had a small smile on their lips, thinking about how much Chiron cared for them.

**"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."**

Poseidon's glare hardened at that, and Dionysus tried his best to ignore the glare, but it was obvious he was having trouble by the way he was leaning away from Poseidon.

**"Mr. D—" Chiron warned.**

**"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."**

Poseidon paled at the thought of what his son was about to do and how much danger he was going to be in.

**Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.**

**He snapped his fingers.**

**The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.**

Dionysus smiled at the mention of his beloved plant, and then frowned, remembering that even though he could grow them, it would just turn into a disaster.

**Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy, please. And Grover."**

**We did.**

**Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.**

All of the demigods smiled, thinking about how Chiron always beats Mr. D and that Mr. D most likely left at that time because he knew he was destined to lose that game anyways.

Mr. D just sighed, wishing for the day that he beats Chiron in pinochle.

**"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"**

Annabeth and Poseidon winced at the mention of the creature and how Percy was almost killed.

Nico smiled, thinking about Mrs. O'Leary.

**Just hearing the name made me shudder.**

**Chiron probably wanted me to say, **_**Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast.**_

A couple people chuckled at that.

**But I didn't feel like lying.**

Connor, Travis, and Hermes all had quizzical looks on their faces, but none of them made a comment.

**"It scared me," I said. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."**

All of the Goddesses and Piper gave the book a weird look, not knowing that there were men that existed who would admit that they were scared.

**"You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done."**

All of the demigods, including Jason, Leo, and Piper who had heard stories about some of the beings he had faced, had sad expressions on their faces, though some had small smiles thinking about how Percy was there to defeat all of those worse monsters.

**"Done ... with what?"**

**"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"**

**I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.**

All of the demigods, minus Annabeth, gave Grover strange looks, not believing he actually wanted to go on that quest.

He said, "At the time, I needed to go on a quest so that I could get my searcher's license, not I'm fine not leaving to go on any quests," in response.

**"Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."**

**Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."**

Clarisse, Leo, Piper, Jason, Annabeth, and Grover sighed, remembering how hard it was to figure out all of the details on all of their quests.

**Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.**

Everyone looked at Poseidon and Zeus, who were busy glaring at each other.

**"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable ... something that was stolen, aren't they?"**

Those who knew what was stolen exchanged nervous glances, fearing what Zeus was going to do when he found out.

**Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.**

**Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"**

**My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft.**

**And ... I've also been having these dreams."**

**"I knew it," Grover said.**

**"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.**

"Yes, hush satyr," joked Conner, which caused Grover to glare at them.

**"But it is his quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"**

A couple of the demigods still gave him curious glances, wondering why he would ever _want _to go on a quest, even though he already told them why earlier.

**"Only the Oracle can determine."**

Jason, Leo, and Piper smiled, thinking of Rachel, while all of the other demigods winced, remembering the mummy that was the Oracle.

**Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."**

All of the Deities', who didn't already know about the theft, eyes widened at the statement, while Zeus leapt out of his throne, yelling, "WHO STOLE IT!" at the demigods, while his bolt appeared in his hands.

All of the demigods, except Thalia and Jason, cowered away from Zeus.

"YOU'RE HAVE TO READ, IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT DAD!" screamed Thalia at her father, while glaring at him.

All of the Gods and Goddesses were watching Zeus at the ready, in case they needed to defend their children / Oracle / satyr / son's girlfriend, from Zeus' wrath.

Zeus, realizing that his daughter was right and wanting to avoid having to fight the other Gods and Goddesses, in case he did something rash because of his feelings at the moment, huffed and sat back down, but not without glaring fiercely at the book.

All of the other occupants of Olympus gave a sigh of relief, and either walked back to their original spots, or sat back in their thrones.

**I laughed nervously. "A **_**what**_**?"**

**"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."**

Zeus smiled smugly at all of the other Gods and Goddesses, while Leo and Piper gulped, while looking at Zeus' bolt, which he was still holding onto because of the fact that he knew it would get stolen and he wanted to keep it near him, in fear.

**"Oh."**

Thalia, Nico, and Annabeth all smiled, thinking about the _eloquent _answer that Percy gave to most statements like the one Chiron just gave.

**"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."**

Zeus would have normally given the other Gods and Goddesses smug looks, but with the knowledge that his weapon would go missing, he just glared at the book and held onto his bolt tightly.

Everyone else in the room, who, were expecting Zeus to give a smug smile, gave him curious looks when they noticed him glaring at the book.

Piper and Leo, however, just looked at the bolt and Zeus in fear and made a mental note not to offend Zeus too badly, or he might just use the bolt on them.

**"And it's missing?"**

**"Stolen," Chiron said.**

Zeus' grip on his lightning bolt tightened, while a couple of the occupants of Olympus sent him wary glances.

**"By who?"**

**"By **_**whom**_**," Chiron corrected.**

Athena and a few of the demigods smiled at that.

**Once a teacher, always a teacher.**

**My mouth fell open.**

"Just like when he looks at you," whispered Rachel to Annabeth, which caused Annabeth to blush a little, and smile, even though Percy hadn't seen her in a long time.

**"At least"—Chiron held up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks. **

"Of course he does," said Poseidon, voice dripping with sarcasm, as he glared at Zeus, who glared just a fiercely back.

**During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. **

All of the Gods and Goddesses sighed, while the two brothers glared at each other.

**The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' etcetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon.**

"Oh course you did. I doubt, however, that you had any actual proof." said Poseidon, while glaring at Zeus, who just glared back at him and said nothing else.

**Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."**

Zeus and Poseidon continued to glare at each other.

**"But I didn't—"**

"Yes, he didn't take it, yet you still blame me," said Poseidon, while glaring even harder at Zeus, who, in return, glared back more fiercely than before.

**"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne.**

"You're crazy," said Demeter, to Zeus.

"What! It does make sense! Kinda…" responded Zeus, finishing off his statement unsure as to what his future self was doing.

**The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."**

A couple of the Olympians just shook their heads at Zeus.

**"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"**

Thunder shook the building and Zeus was glaring daggers at the book.

**Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.**

All of the demigods shivered, either remembering what it looked like, or because of the mental image.

**"Er, Percy ...?" Grover said. "We don't use the **_**c**_**-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."**

"C-word," snorted Travis while laughing.

"Shut up," said Katie while smacking him upside the head to make sure he got the message. _Wow, his hair is soooo soft! _Thought Katie, which caused Aphrodite to look at her and smile mischievously, and Katie to blush.

**"Perhaps **_**paranoid," **_**Chiron suggested. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam..." He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight.**

Everyone stared at the book with dumbfounded expressions, not believing Chiron actually thought Percy would remember the question.

**How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker party without getting busted. **

Hermes shook his head sadly, disappointed in Percy's inability to steal things.

**Chiron was waiting for an answer.**

**"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods ... they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"**

Most of the demigods and Athena stared at the book with wide eyes, while Poseidon and Annabeth both smiled proudly, because they both knew that Percy was smarter than he let on.

**"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw."**

**"But I'm just a kid!"**

"You are more than 'Just a kid'" said Chris, only loud enough for the demigods to hear. Those who heard all nodded their heads in agreement, thinking about all he accomplished, while Annabeth also thought about all the things that she loved about him, which did indeed, make him more than 'Just a kid.'"

**"Percy," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"**

Everyone chuckled at Grover's use of words, while Zeus looked at Poseidon like he did indeed have a twist in his toga.

As the last line was read, Jason received another memory, _The Romans wore togas to… to… Senate Meetings! Mine and Reyna's were different because we were Praetors… I think. _He also wore a smile because the image that came to his mind, when the memory was restored, was of he and Reyna leading a debate in a Senate Meeting, and he couldn't help but smile, remembering how she looked cute in the purple toga.

Piper, after seeing Jason with the same expression he was wearing now, many times, knew that Jason had just gotten another memory back, and couldn't help the smile that graced her lips, happy that Jason was remembering his past, even if that past could put their relationship in jeopardy.

**"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon—my dad—he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"**

"No, I did not do such a thing, because I'm not power-hungry like you are," said Poseidon to Zeus, who was about to retort, but knew he cared about his power, even maybe too much, so he just settled to glare at his elder brother.

**Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. **

Poseidon and most of the Olympians nodded their heads in agreement, even Athena, because even though she despised the Sea God, she, being the Goddess of Wisdom, knew that Poseidon was not a thief, and that Hermes was most likely the only God who would steal the bolt.

_Wait a second! Hermes – steal… It could have been one of his sons who stole it, though it's doubtful that they stole it for their father. Another immortal must have forced or tricked the Hermes child into stealing the bolt for him or her! The demigods most likely know, but they will not tell, so all that can be done is to wait and see if this hypothesis is correct. _

**But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense.**

Said sisters glanced at each other and smiled, knowing that each other knew how hard it was to make those two see any sense at all.

**But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Percy?"**

A few of the occupants of Olympus shuddered, while Ares smiled evilly, evoking many glances his way.

**"Bad?" I guessed.**

All of the demigods who knew Percy smiled reminiscently, while Annabeth's eyes were glossy

**"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."**

**"Bad," I repeated.**

All of the demigods smirked at Percy's response, even Piper, Jason, and Leo.

**"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."**

"_Not if I have anything to say about it," _thought both Poseidon and Annabeth.

**It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.**

Many of the Gods and Goddesses stared at Zeus, who found his shoes to be quite interesting at the moment.

_**I **_**had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.**

Poseidon would have smiled because he was on the same wavelength as his son, but the circumstances facing his son were grave at best, so he opted to remain monotone.

**"So I have to find the stupid bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus."**

"My bolt is not stupid," mumbled Zeus.

**"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"**

**"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?"**

Those who did not know where the bolt was all had quizzical looks on their, faces, while the demigods who knew exactly what happened to the bolt tried their best to keep their features passive.

**"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."**

At the mention of his Oracle, Apollo had frustration written all over his face.

Hades was shifting uncomfortably, trying not to meet any of the other deities' eyes.

Hermes had a look of extreme sadness, remembering clearly what had happened to May.

Leo, Piper, and Jason all had confused looks on their faces, but just chose to wait for the reading to continue, figuring they would receive their answers soon.

**"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"**

All of the demigods grumbled under their breath, "Yes, _why _can't you?" or other phrases with the same meaning, while not meeting the gazes of their parents.

**"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."**

**I swallowed. "Good reason."**

A couple of the demigods who knew Percy chuckled at this.

**"You agree then?"**

**I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.**

For a millisecond, Poseidon glared at Grover, but immediately removed the glare, because he was too focused on worrying about his son's safety.

**Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted to kill.**

This statement caused Poseidon and Zeus to glare at each other once again, but no words were exchanged.

**"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."**

**"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."**

Thalia rolled her eyes thinking, _Great words on encouragement Chiron."_

**Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap door.**

**I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.**

**The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.**

**I held my breath and climbed.**

**The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled **_**things**_—**severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.**

Apollo smiled at the mention of one of his favorite events from that time period, while Hera and Ares scowled, both loathing the "Peace-lovers" and non-normal people.

**By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy.**

All of the demigods, minus Leo, Jason, and Piper grimaced at the mention of the grotesque figure that they had all had the misfortune of seeing at one point or another.

**Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time."**

"_She has," _thought everyone except Jason, Piper, and Leo.

**Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap door, but it slammed shut.**

**Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: **_**I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.**_

Artemis rolled her eyes at her brother's overly dramatic opening phrase for the Oracle.

**I wanted to say, **_**No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bath room. **_**But I forced myself to take a deep breath.**

Most of the occupants of the room chuckled at the thought.

**The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely **_**not **_**human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.**

Annabeth and Clarisse both nodded, knowing what the mummy was like when it gave a prophecy to you when you were alone with the mummy.

**I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"**

"Million-Dollar question!" exclaimed Hermes, while most of the males chuckled and the females rolled their eyes at him.

**The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.**

All of the occupants of Olympus snarled at the mention of the fowl excuse of a human being.

**My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.**

**Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: **_**You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.**_

Hades immediately paled, or somehow got paler than he already was, and many of the Gods and Goddesses sent glances at him, while Zeus and Poseidon both glared at him. Both brothers, however, decided to wait and not be _too _rash in their actions because of the off chance that it wasn't Hades.

**His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: **_**You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.**_

Zeus had a huge smile on his face, but his tight hold on his bolt did not relinquish. The rest of the immortals all sighed; relieved that Zeus' master bolt would be returned safely.

**The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: **_**You shall he betrayed by one who calls you a friend.**_

This caused all of the Gods and Goddesses, as well as Leo, Piper, and Jason, to stop looking relieved and begin to think who the friend was.

Meanwhile, all of the others on Olympus had angry, passive, or sad looks on their faces, all of which went unnoticed by the others.

**Finally, Eddie, our building superior, delivered the worst line of all: **_**And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.**_

All of the demigods who knew what was going to happen smiled, knowing that he would actually save what mattered most to him, or at least what mattered most to him at the time.

**The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"**

Apollo had a sad smile when he said, "She's not going to answer you kid."

**The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.**

**I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cob webs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.**

**My audience with the Oracle was over.**

"_Finally_," thought Poseidon while letting out a sigh of relief.

**"Well?" Chiron asked me.**

**I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."**

Zeus smiled and then said, "The most important part, even though my bolt is what matters most."

Everyone on Olympus chose to just ignore the King of the Gods rather than get in a debate with, or blasted by, him.

**Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"**

**"What did the Oracle say **_**exactly?" **_**Chiron pressed. "This is important."**

"Yes it is," agreed Athena while nodding her head.

**My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She ... she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."**

**"I knew it," Grover said.**

**Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"**

**I didn't want to tell him.**

**What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.**

"But you will," whispered Annabeth under her breath, while staring helplessly at the floor.

Thalia put an arm around her and brought Annabeth into a comforting embrace that seemed to have no effect on said girl.

Athena didn't say anything, but stared worriedly at her daughter, wondering just how much her daughter cared for the boy, and what had to have happened to him to make her so sad.

**And the last line—I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, **_**Oh, by the way, you'll fail**_

Apollo and Hermes had slight smile on their faces from Percy's sarcastic comment.

**How could I confess that?**

**"No," I said. "That's about it."**

Everyone on Olympus, except for Hermes and his children, gave a sigh, knowing Percy should have just told Chiron.

**He studied my face. "Very well, Percy. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."**

Annabeth nodded her head, agreeing with Chiron because that was exactly what happened.

**I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.**

**"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"**

Everyone turned their heads to Hades who was looking at his shoes. Nico's faced darkened, hoping that his father was not responsible.

**"Ah, think, Percy," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"**

"_Not Me," _thought Hades, while still failing to meet any of the other Olympians' looks.

**"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.**

**"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."**

No one wanted to assume things, even though Chiron was normally right, so they just gave a view glances towards Hades, but didn't say anything.

Nico, however, was praying that his father was not the one that took the bolt.

**I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Hades."**

**Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."**

"_I hope I'm not the only possibility…" _thought Hades.

**A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"**

Most of the demigods chuckled at Grover's actions, which caused him to blush bright red.

**"A Fury came after Percy," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."**

**"Yes, but—but Hades hates **_**all **_**heroes," Grover pro tested. "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon..."**

**"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued.**

**"Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."**

Poseidon was glaring daggers at Hades, whom was wondering if the only reason he wanted the boy dead was because of the oath that his brother had broken.

**"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."**

**"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."**

Most of the demigods chuckled at Grover, who blushed and looked at the ground.

**"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon.**

**I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."**

Poseidon sighed and then slouched down in his throne, knowing that his son will most likely not make it out of the Underworld alive.

**A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.**

**I was ready to take him on.**

All of the Gods and Goddesses were looking at the book with raised eyebrows, and Ares had an evil grin on his face, knowing full well that fighting would be occurring in the book very soon.

**Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld …**

Both Poseidon and Annabeth had sad smiles at the mention of Sally, Poseidon because he thought she was captured by Hades, and Annabeth because she thought about how worried Sally was when they told her that Percy was missing.

**Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god.**

Hades nodded his head in agreement, while Nico smiled to himself, knowing that Percy would eventually defeat his father.

**Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.**

The chuckles of most of the occupants of Olympus ensued, which caused Grover to blush an even brighter red and look at his shoes.

**The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.**

**"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."**

"If only it was that simple," mumbled Zeus, which caused most of the Gods to crack a smile and Hades to glare half-heartedly at his youngest brother.

**"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—they couldn't retrieve the bolt them selves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it.**

"Or stupid enough," said Clarisse which caused everyone to nod their heads in agreement and a few of the demigods to smile, because Percy was both strong and bold, and stupid.

**No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"**

**"You're saying I'm being used."**

All of the Gods and Goddesses who had children looked anyone but their kids, not wanting to see the looks that were on their children's faces.

**"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."**

**My dad needs me.**

Poseidon had a small smile on his face, hoping that Percy would see it as that and not as him trying to use Percy, which he was not intending to do.

**Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me.**

Poseidon's small smile fell from his face and he look down dejectedly, sad that his son felt resentment towards him.

**I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"**

"Yes!" was chorused by the demigods, and most of the Olympians agreed that Chiron most likely knew whose child Percy was.

**"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."**

Those who had seen the mummy shivered.

Rachel, however, thinking that they were doing that to make fun of her, glared at everyone who shivered, which only seemed to increase their shivering.

Grover, who was smiling, leaned over to Rachel and whispered to her, "They are shivering because they saw the mummy, not you."

Rachel, who remembered seeing the mummy when she became the Oracle, stopped glaring at everyone, which caused their shivering to finally cease.

**I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.**

**"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."**

**"Check," Chiron said.**

**"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."**

**"Check."**

**"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."**

**"That's about right."**

"He makes it sound like it's going to be easy," noted Leo.

Everyone just stared at him, not believing that Leo said something that wasn't a complete joke.

When Leo realized everyone was staring at him, he said "What, do you want me to joke around all day?"

**I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.**

Cue the chuckles of the demigods and Grover's blushing.

**"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.**

Even some of the Gods joined in on at laughing at Grover's sad attempt to try to avoid going.

**"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you.**

**"Oh ..." He shifted his hooves. "No ... it's just that satyrs and underground places ... well..."**

**He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."**

**I felt so relieved I wanted to cry,**

Both Clarisse and Ares muttered, "Wuss," under their breaths and luckily no one heard them.

**though I didn't think that would be very heroic. Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.**

Annabeth gave Grover a small smile, to which he returned with his own.

**"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."**

**"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."**

**"Where?"**

**Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."**

**"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane—"**

"NO!" yelled Poseidon, who almost jumped out of his throne trying to make sure Percy, or the book really, got the message to not take a plane to Los Angeles.

Zeus had a wicked smile on his face at the mention of Percy getting on a plane.

**"No!" Grover shrieked. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"**

**I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.**

Zeus' wicked smile was wiped off his face when everyone, including his face, was glaring daggers at him. He found his shoes very interesting at that point in time.

**"Percy, think," Chiron said. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."**

**Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.**

Most of the Olympians and Thalia rolled their eyes at Zeus and his theatrics.

**"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland."**

**"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."**

"_Oh no!" _thought Athena as she began to piece together who would be going with them on the quest to the Underworld.

**"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"**

**The air shimmered behind Chiron.**

**Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.**

Aphrodite smiled at Annabeth, imagining all of the romantic ventures Annabeth and Percy would soon embark on together.

**"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain," she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."**

Athena nodded her head in agreement, knowing that her daughter would be the best person for the job, and also glad that her daughter knew to not get close to the Sea Spawn.

**"If you do say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, wise girl?"**

"They are just so cute when they flirt," squealed Aphrodite, while everyone else covered their ears as to try to not be deafened by Aphrodite.

**Her cheeks colored. "Do you want my help or not?"**

**The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.**

**"A trio," I said. "That'll work."**

**"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."**

**Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.**

**"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."**

"That's it, who wants to read next?" asked Leo.

"I will," said Rachel as Leo handed the book to the Oracle.

"**I Ruin a Perfectly Good Bus."**

**I am sooo sorry for not updating in such a long time, but I didn't get the motivation to finish this until today, when I logged into my account and saw some of the reviews and saw how many people have viewed my story and I got the drive to start this up again. Not guarantees on updates, but I will try my best to do at least on chapter a week. Thanks to all of you who have waited so patiently for me to update again. Don't forget to review and such. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

**Nicene Quotes**


End file.
